Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[MrSmokestack]

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

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.  -_-

What units are you using? Are they Lv. 40? Do they have color advantage against what you're trying to attack? Sometimes you need to kite back if you're not able to KO something in one turn, is all I can say.

[JJ48]

3 minutes ago, MrSmokestack said:

What units are you using? Are they Lv. 40? Do they have color advantage against what you're trying to attack? Sometimes you need to kite back if you're not able to KO something in one turn, is all I can say.

Level 40...level 15...doesn't seem to make a bit of difference.  I've been trying all sorts of teams all day.  Yes, I'm aware of color advantage.  But when your level 35 Sophia (your only red unit on the team) only does 10 damage to a level twenty-something Camilla, there's not much you can do.  I'm not expecting a cakewalk, but you'd think on the lowest level they'd at least give you match-ups that were possible!

[MrSmokestack]

11 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Level 40...level 15...doesn't seem to make a bit of difference.  I've been trying all sorts of teams all day.  Yes, I'm aware of color advantage.  But when your level 35 Sophia (your only red unit on the team) only does 10 damage to a level twenty-something Camilla, there's not much you can do.  I'm not expecting a cakewalk, but you'd think on the lowest level they'd at least give you match-ups that were possible!

To be frank, your first mistake is using underleveled units. Sophia's Atk rating isn't going to be as good at 35 as it is at 40.

Second, color advantage doesn't mean a unit will auto-win vs a certain other unit; it just increases your Atk 1.2x before being subtracted from the target's Def or Res. Conversely, disadvantage applies a 0.8x multiplier to your Atk. Getting in the habit of doing quick calculations like these on the fly can help greatly in just about any game you're in.

I can't speak for what other units you have access to, but utilizing simple offensive buffs like Hone / Spur Atk and Spd can also be very helpful for reaching certain KO thresholds. Look up stats for units you have trouble against and plan in advance how you will deal with them. It's a simple habit you can pick up for every season depending on your scoring bracket.

Lastly, some finesse in how you move your units can make a huge difference in how you can handle the enemy team. The AI is beyond dumb and will move toward units they can attack with a color advantage. Take advantage of this by either splitting up your team or having them move in pairs to separate enemy units from each other, allowing you to pick them off with ease.

Hope this helped.

Edited April 23, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[JJ48]

Just now, MrSmokestack said:

To be frank, your first mistake is using underleveled units. Sophia's Atk rating isn't going to be as good at 35 as it is at 40.

Second, color advantage doesn't mean a unit will auto-win vs a certain other unit; it just increases your Atk 1.2x before being subtracted from the target's Def or Res. Conversely, disadvantage applies a 0.8x multiplier to your Atk. Getting in the habit of doing quick calculations like these on the fly can help greatly in just about any game you're in.

I can't speak for what other units you have access to, but utilizing simple offensive buffs like Hone / Spur Atk and Spd can also be very helpful for reaching certain KO thresholds. Look up stats for units you have trouble against and plan in advance how you will deal with them. It's a simple habit you can pick up for every season depending on your scoring bracket.

Lastly, some finesse in how you move your units can make a huge difference in how you can handle the enemy team. The AI is beyond dumb and will move toward units they can attack with a color advantage. Take advantage of this by either splitting up your tean or having them move in pairs to separate enemy units from each other, allowing you to pick them off with ease.

Hope this helped.

I understand all of this.  What I don't understand is how, no matter what team I use, the game picks an opponent whose team perfectly counters it.  It doesn't matter how skillful you are at kiting around the AI when your units can't scratch theirs and their lone Marth wipes the floor with every single one of yours, including your blue!  I thought they just did an Arena update to try to reign in this nonsense!

[MrSmokestack]

8 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I understand all of this.  What I don't understand is how, no matter what team I use, the game picks an opponent whose team perfectly counters it.

It doesn't matter how skillful you are at kiting around the AI when your units can't scratch theirs and their lone Marth wipes the floor with every single one of yours, including your blue!

Making a team that gets perfectly countered can happen--and sometimes does--but it's not an indication of the system being broken. See for yourself how some people's deathless streaks got broken right here in this thread because they faced a flier emblem team on their 7th game and they just weren't prepared.

Both unit strength and movement matter. As I mentioned before, the exact units you're using to deal with opposing colors is equally as important as how you move them to gain an advantage.

That's all I can really offer without knowing the rest of your team though. If a team is having a great deal of trouble with one or two specific units, either find ways to deal with them by comparing stats or go back to the drawing board and plan it out again.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

What's your team, anyway? And what were you fighting?

Some units just have really awful stat spreads or have good stat spreads that are a bit overly specialized, which leads to cases where they struggle against an enemy even with colour advantage, or can defy the colour disadvantage to tank it. Camilla tanking Sophia is a decent example of the latter because Camilla's base Res is quite formidable.

[Othin]

37 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

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.  -_-

That sounds very strange. What characters are you using, and what are their levels, star ranks, and skills? You mentioned trying out various different characters but if you post the ones you have available, we should be able to help you pick which ones can make a good team. In particular, using fully leveled units is how you get good scores, so what characters do you have at or near lv40?

[JJ48]

1 minute ago, MrSmokestack said:

Making a team that gets perfectly countered can happen--and sometimes does--but it's not an indication of the system being broken. See for yourself how some people's deathless streaks got broken right here in this thread because they faced a flier emblem team on their 7th game and they just weren't prepared.

Both unit strength and movement matter. As I mentioned before, the exact units you're using to deal with opposing colors is equally as important as how you move them to gain an advantage.

That's all I can really offer without knowing the rest of your team though. If a team is having a great deal of trouble with one or two specific units, either find ways to deal with them by comparing stats or go back to the drawing board and plan it out again.

Again, we're not talking trying for a 7-game deathless streak on Advanced.  We're talking about trying to get even two back-to-back wins on Beginner, regardless of number of survivors.  I've tried swapping out multiple units and trying multiple approaches, and nothing seems to work.

Don't get me wrong:  I appreciate what you're trying to do.  It's just that I've been playing since the game released, and I had been getting 2K-3K points every Arena.  Suddenly, this week, I can't even break 500.  I don't believe there is anything anyone can do to help; I was just wondering if anyone was experiencing similar issues.  Apparently not.

15 minutes ago, Othin said:

That sounds very strange. What characters are you using, and what are their levels, star ranks, and skills? You mentioned trying out various different characters but if you post the ones you have available, we should be able to help you pick which ones can make a good team. In particular, using fully leveled units is how you get good scores, so what characters do you have at or near lv40?

I guess it would depend on how you define "near 40", but I have the following units 38 and higher:

40 Merric 5-Star

40 Camilla 5-Star

40 Tharja 5-Star

40 Jeorge 5-Star

40 Ursula 4-Star

40 Eliwood 4-Star

39 Serra 4-Star

38 Cecilia 4-Star

[MrSmokestack]

5 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Again, we're not talking trying for a 7-game deathless streak on Advanced.  We're talking about trying to get even two back-to-back wins on Beginner, regardless of number of survivors.  I've tried swapping out multiple units and trying multiple approaches, and nothing seems to work.

Don't get me wrong:  I appreciate what you're trying to do.  It's just that I've been playing since the game released, and I had been getting 2K-3K points every Arena.  Suddenly, this week, I can't even break 500.  I don't believe there is anything anyone can do to help; I was just wondering if anyone was experiencing similar issues.  Apparently not.

 

Merric, Camilla, Tharja, Jeorge, and Ursula, Eliwood, Serra, and Cecilia.

Oh, I was just using the "flier emblem team" as an example, not that it would apply to you or anything.

There is one glaring issue with your roster though; you're missing a solid 5* blue, a niche that Sharena happens to fit pretty well. She not only has a balanced stat spread, she even carries buffs to provide team support, not to mention she's one of the bonus units this week. Promoting her next if you haven't already is probably the best course of action I'd recommend at this point.

Post-patch Arena is still an enigma though in terms of matchmaking and scoring, and it's difficult to explain why exactly you're in the situation you're in, sadly.

[JJ48]

Just now, MrSmokestack said:

Oh, I was just using the "flier emblem team" as an example, not that it would apply to you or anything.

There is one glaring issue with your roster though; you're missing a solid 5* blue, a niche that Sharena happens to fit pretty well. She not only has a balanced stat spread, she even carries buffs to provide team support, not to mention she's one of the bonus units this week. Promoting her next if you haven't already is probably the best course of action I'd recommend at this point.

Post-patch Arena is still an enigma though in terms of matchmaking and scoring, and it's difficult to explain why exactly you're in the situation you're in, sadly.

Yeah, I had a level 40, 4-Star Sharena, but I promoted her and haven't managed to level her up yet.

[Othin]

26 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Again, we're not talking trying for a 7-game deathless streak on Advanced.  We're talking about trying to get even two back-to-back wins on Beginner, regardless of number of survivors.  I've tried swapping out multiple units and trying multiple approaches, and nothing seems to work.

Don't get me wrong:  I appreciate what you're trying to do.  It's just that I've been playing since the game released, and I had been getting 2K-3K points every Arena.  Suddenly, this week, I can't even break 500.  I don't believe there is anything anyone can do to help; I was just wondering if anyone was experiencing similar issues.  Apparently not.

I guess it would depend on how you define "near 40", but I have the following units 38 and higher:

40 Merric 5-Star

40 Camilla 5-Star

40 Tharja 5-Star

40 Jeorge 5-Star

40 Ursula 4-Star

40 Eliwood 4-Star

39 Serra 4-Star

38 Cecilia 4-Star

It's not too critical of a threshold. My intent was mostly just to focus on characters you'd be most likely to finish training to 40 while also cutting the list down to a reasonable size.

Of the 5*s you've trained, there are two big holes I'm seeing: none of them are blue, and none of them have a good melee enemy phase. Camilla is the only one that's melee, and she's built for player phase. Sharena can help with both issues, so if you've upgraded her to 5*, definitely train her up to 40 as soon as possible. Do you have any other 5*s?

I've used Sharena to great success and I found Merric useful in early arena stages, but I haven't personally used any of the others in arena settings. My recommendation is to focus on your 5*s: from the sound of it, your best bet is Sharena and Camilla as blue and green melee, Tharja as a red nuke, and either Merric or Jeorge as the last slot. Make sure they all learn all the skills they can get naturally, and remember that they can use skill inheritance to get additional stuff: in particular Hone/Fortify/Rally skills will help Tharja. So I'd say focus on trying those out, even on lower difficulty levels, and see if you can report in more detail how things go. Those characters should be able to get better results than the ones you've been getting, so we'll probably be able to give you some helpful strategic advice once you can give more detail about how the battles go and where they go wrong.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Othin

[KinoSei]

I'd also like to chime in on this discussion regarding the purpose of the arena, and what the quantitative, qualitative rewards coming from the game are. I think that we're all on the same page that anything other than the arena, is essentially 1P mode to be completed at an indiviudal's discretion. 

As @eclipse stated, actually learning the game is one of the more important qualitative rewards and 1P mode is especially helpful in doing so; after all no matter how much a person theorizes about a team composition, a skillset on a unit, or just shores up incredibly useful characters, there's no point if they don't actually play and find out for themselves what those units are and aren't capable of handling. This is quite apparent in how people handle themselves in 1P mode. At this point I'd like to give some benefit of doubt to new players, because they haven't had the time to explore the game, and will otherwise express my opinions quite strongly (sorry if you feel butthurt, but y'all need learn how to hold the salt).

For the sake of my examples (I am well aware that everyone plays differently), I'd like to separate players into 3 categories: those who blindly roll and pray for a good unit (#1), those who have understanding of the game's mechanics and are capable of formulating strategies (#2), and those who simply brute force the game with monetary resources (#3, and as @DehNutCase would put it, the strength of a general who is capable of shoring up 100k units); this isn't to say that everyone only falls into only one of these categories.

The first category is comprised of players of claiming to be f2p but constantly complain about how they don't have good luck or units and that that's the sole reason why they don't do well in 1P mode (lunatic mode GHBs are excellent examples of this) or arena when in truth they aren't taking advantage of the other resource at their disposal, the internet. If they have a mobile device capable of playing Heroes, then they sure as hell have access to the internet. We have sites like SF and Gamefaqs for information distributing and discussion purposes. We also general game streaming sites like Twitch and Youtube to allow us to watch and learn from more experienced players, if not only for entertainment. One such player/streamer named Itchy, cleared these GHB with only 3 star units available to everyone from the daily rotation of the special maps. The one problem with video (guides) like this, is that it serves as a double-edged blade: the viewer will either feel that it is not impossible to beat 1P mode using incredible wit and creativeness and start anew, or become even moar briandaed by simply copying the content creator, opting not to think for themselves. If you have a hard time searching up sites, videos, or tools like these: https://rocketmo.github.io/feh-damage-calc/, https://arghblargh.github.io/feh-inheritance-tool/, http://feheroes.gamepedia.com/Inheritance_Tier_List#, then you need to re-learn how to use a search engine and sift out only the important results; then again, you probably wouldn't be seeing this post in the first place. If you fall into this category, then it's important to acknowledge that you need time, effort and knowledge to play this game well; if you claim to have spent loads of time on the game and still can't do well, then you don't know the game as well as think you do (granted everyone has a different learning curves for different subject areas) and you should start studying up! If you claim to have the knowledge, but don't have the process and results to back it up, then you haven't spent enough time and effort on the game, whether it be grinding your characters for levels or SP, and so you need to learn patience, as you won't be clearing hard or lunatic mode without properly trained units (granted not everyone has the time to be playing the game 24/7 and is busy with other aspects of their lives).

The second category is more diverse, and where a majority of players fall, including many of the posters on this thread. You can be: f2p and still perform admirably in the arena, the strategist who uses his financial capabilities as an asset to top the rankings, or someone who spends some money and lands in between. You may ask, how can a whale possibly be a good strategist? My answer is, they don't have to be; they could be, but they don't have to. The top ranker prior to the 1.2.0 update didn't have an especially appealing teambuild (Effie, Effie, Takumi, Ninian all merged at +10) (on another note, this guy f-ing pulled at least 22 Effies! WTH!) but he understood what it would take to get the highest score, which meant having thorough understanding of arena mechanics and not just how to play the maps or his team. He abused the effect Fury would have on his team's BST and arena score and gave up a dueling sword prior to actually starting a battle if he didn't find the opponent he wanted (giving up prior to starting a battle doesn't end your win streak). While a lot may argue that there were plenty of other players who did this, the main difference is that he, along with other money spenders, have money to aid in their high scoring victories. He rinsed and repeated this process until he found an opponent which would give him 730 per deathless battle, for a total of 5,110 at the end of a deathless run. I would say that he is at least decent in terms of strategy, considering that he pulled it off. 

If you fall into the third category, I have nothing to more say to you, as you are investing resources into something which you yourself do not put a lot of effort into.

From here I'll be discussing the the rewards of the arena and re-rolling as a mechanic. Ultimately the arena is not a multiplayer mode, as it is nothing like the PvP of Fates where you actually face-off against a live person. It is more similar to Awakening's Street Pass functionality should the player choose to battle the Opponent's AI controlled team on contact. Arena and VG are the closest this game gets to a multiplayer mode because of how we can view another player's units and team, but is really just a leaderboard of sorts. A leaderboard is of competitive nature, especially when your performance (in the form of numbers) can be viewed/compared to users worldwide; obviously everyone would want to do their best and see how far they can take themselves. The arena is also a place where players stake and stroke their pride and egos respectively (to varying degrees); this would be one of the qualitative rewards of participating in the arena (if anyone claims that they don't do it for their pride or ego, then why are they even playing this game?). A part of the human psych is the desire to feel unique and/or powerful; to be different from everyone else. However, people will react differently to the preferential treatment one gets for being "unique" (more often negatively due to the weight of expectations placed on you for achieving what other's can't), and so many of us would still like to satiate this need but at a lower tone; video games are an excellent medium for this purpose, where the stakes aren't too high, and the most you can do to yourself is inflict feelings of frustration for losing (if for some reason, you are downright furious after losing, you have anger management issues). Of course this really only applies to games outside of e-Sports, where players don't play for a living and aren't as invested in the game as the pros are. Another way some players can feel unique are through their units; whether it's because they have the super rare units which a majority of players don't have, or they've put in effort to grinding their waifu/husbando to 5 stars (as DehNutCase would put it: power and eye-candy).

The other qualitative, and perhaps quantitative reward of the arena, is the fulfillment of the human need for certainty, which means the need to attain only pleasure and avoid pain. In the case of a gacha game like Heroes, it's impossible to avoid loss as you either spend money or you don't. And let me explain... If you do, then the money you spend better be worth the units you get. Something along this line of thought is the balance that should be stricken between spending money and the feeling/results that show it was put to good use in the arena by getting a high score and earning lots of feathers; a trade-off in your favor against Nintendo and IS who took your money, if you will. If you didn't spend money, then you have less chances to pull or promote the units you want due to receiving less orbs and feathers, which will in turn take more time and effort, which is a decision of opportunity cost.

I don't consider re-rolling to have much of a qualitative reward, because pulling units is the essence of a gacha game, and pulling a good unit will happen, so whether the satisfaction of pulling one comes sooner or later is of no consequence to me. As for the quantitative reward for re-rolling, I believe @XaosLogos pretty aptly summarized re-rolling as spending less time and feathers for higher rarity units. In his/her/? case, re-rolling was an extremely successful alternative to just playing the game normally and getting the higher rarity units one may want for their team. This isn't such an accurate indicator of the benefits re-rolling may have as it all comes down to RNG and applies differently to everyone, and trust me, many a player have not had the luck of pulling such units within the short time frame you gave us as an example. In fact, I agree that if you simply wanted to get good units at the start of the game for free, re-rolling is a good option; it's kind of similar to soft resetting for a shiny in Pokemon. However, using it as a measurement of time as a resource is nigh impossible when taking every individual into account because it makes for bad comparison; say someone had the crappiest luck and couldn't even manage to pull a focus unit not to mention a regular 5 star, within the span of a month, perhaps because they could only play for a couple hours once every few days (I realize this is a bit specific for an example, but it's for the sake of argument). This person, hasn't even "started" the game and is eternally stuck at the prologue, is worse off compared to someone who decided to forgo re-rolling, has already started to save up on orbs and feathers, and adequately trained their units (albeit less than desirable (maybe?) but still viable in their own right) imo. 

Continuing from there, the more money you spend, the more likely you are to pull better units and achieve higher scores in the arena, and therefore earn more feathers; this is pretty much true. In an ideal universe, f2p will eventually catch up to those who spend money in terms of arena scoring, and so earning more feathers as a whale (sorry if you feel offended by this term) should really only be applied to the earlier stages of the game, and is more of a short-term advantage than long (though how short this period is is anybody's guess); unless of course Nintendo and IS does something about it. 

Now time to crunch some numbers, XaosLogos' example of saving 18,000 feathers per 5 star unit is only applicable to those specific units which have lower star rarity which makes sense for Jeorge, but not so much for Takumi; units with only 5 star rarities can't be compared to units who may require feathers to promote from a lower rarity in this scenario, as they do not require feathers. Also, I'm not quite sure where the number 18k came from, because the cost of promotion from 4 star to 5 would require 20k at the very most. Let's use Jeorge in this example, assuming you only pulled 5 heroes in only one summoning round, due to the nature of re-rolling, and you managed to pull all 4 star Jeorge's, then the greatest amount of feathers you would save for a 5 star promotion would be 1200 feathers [4 of the same units for merging x 300 feathers per 4 star rarity = 1200], meaning that you would save 18,800 for a 5 star promotion in one round, at worst and 20k at best if you managed to pull the 5 star version.

We also have to take into consideration, the odds of pulling said character if you were looking for them specifically during the re-roll. Let's take the Deep Devotion summoning banner (Camilla, Lyn, Roy, Takumi) at the launch of Heroes as the time frame for re-roll summoning as it makes the most sense for your example. Clean Game Reviews has an in-depth explanation of how these numbers can be found in his guide here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n74VImvP64. So at the time of launch the total character pool consisted of 87 pullable units (only those available through summoning) broken down into: 29 red units, 21 blue, 17 green, and 20 colorless across all rarities. The character pool for 5* exclusively consists of 38 units broken down into: 14 red, 9 blue, 8 green, 7 colorless; we will be using these numbers because we want to find the probability of pulling the 5 star heroes. Due to the nature of re-rolling, the banner will not be receiving any bonus percentage towards 5 star units and will remain at 3% for 5* Focus, 3% for 5*, 36% for 4*, and 58% for 3*. First we have to find the probability of finding a 5 star unit by dividing the displayed chances of finding one, 3%, by the total number of 5 star units, which is in this example, 38 giving us: 3%/38 units = ~.08% chance for finding any individual 5 star. Which is actually quite high, considering that Focus units have an additional 3% chance of being picked up. This number only applies to focus units that don't have lower rarities such as Takumi. If non-focus units like Jeorge, who have lower rarities, were taken into consideration, where the concept of saving feathers actually mattered, then you would have to include the pool of characters for the lower rarity as well, which of course lowers your odds by a whole lot. The way I see it, the actual benefit to doing a re-roll is to earn a better chance at getting good units before more and more characters are added to the pool down the line (or finding a specific unit with good IVs) rather than that of a successful start as it is difficult to compare a user who spends time to re-roll and get a good unit, to one that doesn't but also ends up with a good unit or at least has the strategy to make up for the lack of said units; as such the use of time and feathers as a measuring device isn't very reliable anymore. As for whether this is worth, is up to the individual.

On a final note, I wholeheartedly agree with @Korath88 that you should use units who you want to use and play the game how you want to play. Sorry if you felt that this post was too long, too confusing, or if you felt insulted by what I said, but I am entitled to my own opinions (as is everyone else). As I am quite exhausted after writing this up, I will leave the wrap-up a little loose, and perhaps somewhat underwhelming. But thank you for reading all the way to the end; if you did, that means a lot to me.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by KinoSei

[pianime94]

So a few days ago I blew a couple of crests since that Bonfire Michalis wrecked me. And then I lost again and again and again notably to:

1. Bonfire Effie
2. Blade Leo and Cecillia. Both has Hone Cavalry inherited
3. Complete Cavalry team, in the wall map, no less, featuring Abel, Eldigan, Gunter, Olwen. Eldigan boosted with Ward Cavalry is a tough nut case.

And then I finally got a deathless run in the end with the score of 4774. Currently placed at 5721.

Today, I got another deathless run (minus the crest burning) and got a score of 4778. Rank will be updated later.

My team is: Julia with speed seal, Eirika with Fury, Ryoma with Vantage and Fury, Sharena with Luna.

I think I'm gonna give Julia a Lancebreaker soon since I really need to ORK Effie to save me some headache.

Edited April 23, 2017 by pianime94
Typo on the score.

[eclipse]

11 hours ago, XaosLogos said:

(snip)

That would be quite the wall, hence the snip.

Did you stop and ask yourself what would happen if you DIDN'T have those units to start off with?  The game is plenty playable, even with zero 5* units.  Hell, there's three GHB battles I did were done with a 4* team (Camilla, Sakura, Gordin, and Raigh for Narcian/F!Robin, Olivia, Frederick, and Subaki for Ursula/Sully, Olivia, Raigh, and Camilla for Michalis).  Will having 5* units make things easier?  Maybe.  For reference, it wasn't because I lacked 5* units - my strategy simply called for something else.

You're also assuming that I wouldn't simply leave my units at 4* and call it a day.  Every single 5* on my account was pulled that way - the one and only unit I promoted with feathers was promptly sent home.  I sat on two 5* units for the longest time, one of which wasn't on my arena team for the longest time.  In the process, I learned how to work with my units, and how to compensate for the lack of firepower - read through the pages of this topic, and you'll see how my team and strategies have evolved.

In other words, the head start you speak of is not as great as you think it is.  Instead of spending time rerolling, I spent it actually playing the game, and learning how to work with what I have.  As a result, when I got this, I was able to propose what I'd do with her almost immediately (as in, a few posts later).  Yes, it's scary, going into a game and not knowing whether or not I'll be able to advance.  But I believe that game developers are smart enough to design a game so that even the unluckiest person will be able to do the majority of the content.

My pulls have been oddly streaky, but as of now, I have 10 5* units, and I'm thankful for every single one, even that -Atk Spring Lucina, who will take something like 28,000 feathers and two characters I don't have to be viable.  And no, I'm not going to waste my time on a quest that doesn't have a guaranteed reward. Stamina may be cheap, but my personal time isn't.

@DehNutCase, saw your post, but I do NOT have it in me to respond to two walls at once.

---

Speaking of time, it took a while, but I finally pulled a deathless streak in the arena.  Team was Virion, Spring Camilla, Ryoma, and Ephraim.  In other words, absolute weapon triangle control with flier elimination.

Current score: 4,720
Current rank: 15,063
Defense score: 279-285

I don't know how I scored defensive wins, but I'm happy!

[Vaximillian]

Finally, a deathless streak. Score of 4,778, rank who-knows-where4,865. Down to 10 dueling crests. I think I'm safe for 10k.

Fought two Flier Emblem teams, Cordelia/Hinoka/Minerva/(Sharena), and Palla/Catria/Minerva/Michalis.

The first fell easily to Michalis and a tiny bit of help from Lilina, the second was dealt with by combined effort of Catria, Lilina, and Michalis.
Sharena was too busy running around buffing stuff. I was lucky enough not to get the parallel walls map even once this run.

On the other hand, no successful defences yet for my dragon girls (and Lilina):

Edited April 23, 2017 by Vaximillian

[Korath88]

4,780 score has now fallen to rank 4,400. Don't think I'll make the top 5k. 

Today's matches went fine for the most part, scariest thing was not Reinhardt, surprisingly, but a +4 fury/lightning breath+ Ninian. She still got shanked by Alm, because no tri adept. TBH, I find Ninian to be more threatening than Azura to my team, mostly because magic damage and all 4 members of my team being -Res

[pianime94]

27 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Finally, a deathless streak. Score of 4,778, rank who-knows-where.

Just to save your time, it's ranked 4865.

[Fei Mao]

Managed to get a deathless score of 4,762, currently ranked at 7,907 and might be good for top 10k. Also, I was expecting to be baited by a low level Wrys but surprisingly it was the opposite.

[Vaximillian]

11 minutes ago, pianime94 said:

Just to save your time, it's ranked 4865.

Yours is the same? Cool!

1 minute ago, Fei Mao said:

Managed to get a deathless score of 4,762, currently ranked at 7,907 and might be good for top 10k. Also, I was expecting to be baited by a low level Wrys but surprisingly it was the opposite.

I once was offered a team led by Ursula. I quickly noped away in fear of a cavalry team.

[eclipse]

During my quest for my deathless streak, the most memorable team I ran into was Serra, Draug, Sheena, and Hector.  Had to admire the dedication for that, even if Ryoma and Spring Camilla steamrolled them.

It's not the top-tier teams I remember - it's stuff like this that sticks with me.

[Clogon]

Man I keep dying due to stupid mistakes. Playing while sick+on meds is not a good idea. Guess I just stick with my 4704 score with 2 deaths. :( Goodbye 500 Feathers.

[Fei Mao]

1 hour ago, Vaximillian said:

Yours is the same? Cool!

I once was offered a team led by Ursula. I quickly noped away in fear of a cavalry team.

Truthfully, I have never faced a full cav team before, sounds really difficult if it made you pass on it.

46 minutes ago, eclipse said:

During my quest for my deathless streak, the most memorable team I ran into was Serra, Draug, Sheena, and Hector.  Had to admire the dedication for that, even if Ryoma and Spring Camilla steamrolled them.

It's not the top-tier teams I remember - it's stuff like this that sticks with me.

Yeah, it's nice when people put something that isn't a top tier team.

[JJ48]

7 hours ago, Othin said:

It's not too critical of a threshold. My intent was mostly just to focus on characters you'd be most likely to finish training to 40 while also cutting the list down to a reasonable size.

Of the 5*s you've trained, there are two big holes I'm seeing: none of them are blue, and none of them have a good melee enemy phase. Camilla is the only one that's melee, and she's built for player phase. Sharena can help with both issues, so if you've upgraded her to 5*, definitely train her up to 40 as soon as possible. Do you have any other 5*s?

I've used Sharena to great success and I found Merric useful in early arena stages, but I haven't personally used any of the others in arena settings. My recommendation is to focus on your 5*s: from the sound of it, your best bet is Sharena and Camilla as blue and green melee, Tharja as a red nuke, and either Merric or Jeorge as the last slot. Make sure they all learn all the skills they can get naturally, and remember that they can use skill inheritance to get additional stuff: in particular Hone/Fortify/Rally skills will help Tharja. So I'd say focus on trying those out, even on lower difficulty levels, and see if you can report in more detail how things go. Those characters should be able to get better results than the ones you've been getting, so we'll probably be able to give you some helpful strategic advice once you can give more detail about how the battles go and where they go wrong.

Oh, I've got plenty of other 5*s:  Ogma, Roy, M. Corrin, Cain x2, Spring Lucina x2, Hawkeye, Klein, and Maria.  I just have limited time each day to dedicate to leveling units, and lately that's been going to flyers so that I can do the quests.

Anyway, before I even changed anything, the game started giving me more realistic match-ups consistently, and I managed a 7-win streak.  After the way the Arena's been acting up for me all week, I'll take a score of 1,342!  ^_^

Thanks for all the advice, which will be useful in someday aiming for doing Advanced Arena duels rather than Beginner and Intermediate!

[LuxSpes]

I tried to do another run to see if I couldn't raise my score a bit since I had used 2 mages and a dancer and those tend to lower the score.

I tried a couple of team comps, but I always end up losing 1 unit.

Decided to try a  Sanaki/Nino/Linde/Lukas line-up and I was surprised to see that I got a higher battle score per match than when I was using a team with higher BST units. I guess I underestimated how much merge and skill inheritance affect your score.

Ended with 4774 with my overall rank at 5897 which is an improvement over my previous 4642 score that gave me a rank in the 12K range.

[MrSmokestack]

On 4/20/2017 at 10:03 PM, MrSmokestack said:

Rank update~

Now at 2,672. Defense Score is now 288.

Is top 5k finally in reach?

Still in 5k at 4,507, but with the season ending this might be cutting it close. Defense Score is still the same.