Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[ignis_z]

1 hour ago, Okigen said:

I really doubt your victory was thanks to Lachesis, unless she had some kind of Wings of Mercy on her. Healers often fall very far behind, and Lachesis is - urg, I really want to kill IS for doing this - not a great healer to start with.

Double dancers sound nice. I often have trouble with even one dancer so two may catch someone offguard. I think Azura will be better than Ninian since she is more offensive and less vulnerable to Naga/Fachion. Let me know if this works - I may try it on my own team.

Oki ill wait!

[DehNutCase]

Looks like the starting 3 are always going to be on the bonus rotation. Time to grind my Anna up, I guess. (Assuming Zephiel doesn't pan.)

 

Edit: Also, no Reinhardt, R.I.P hopes and dreams.

Off-topic Edit:

Spoiler

 

I feel kind of like a douche, right now. (Selena has Ruby Sword, Fury 2, and Renewal 3 for maximum asshattiness on my defense team.) Snuck that win in just in time, Team's been up for less than 24 hours.

Edited May 1, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Othin]

6 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Looks like the starting 3 are always going to be on the bonus rotation. Time to grind my Anna up, I guess. (Assuming Zephiel doesn't pan.)

 

Edit: Also, no Reinhardt, R.I.P hopes and dreams.

That's convenient but a bit strange. I didn't think they'd keep doing that, since getting 5* bonus heroes is such an incentive for pulling from new banners while this means upgrading the original three lets you always have one. I didn't manage to get any World of Radiance heroes, though, so I certainly can't complain.

Guess upgrading Anna to 5* wasn't as useless as I'd feared, although I'll have to work on her skill set. I'll also have to upgrade Alfonse at some point, but no hurry because I plan to upgrade Xander and use him for the next rotation.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Well, look at the opportunity cost for 5*ing one of the starters: 22 200 feathers for promotions and then SI can easily bring the total cost closer to 30k. This means that you're probably looking at 5-6 Arena seasons just to reach resource parity (granted, those characters can contribute to other things, like the Tenth quests, but still). I think they can pretty safely assume most people will still go for the instant 5* from pulling.

[Elieson]

5* Anna is a bit of a chump without a little bit of skill inheritance, because Astra isn't exactly easy to utilize and her offense with Vantage often means that she'll score an early hit to finish someone off but it might not be enough under many cases. She needs a durability boost or damage boost to really push her potential.

 

I 5*'d the starter crew assuming that in worst case scenario, I'll have a bonus unit for every instance. Stock Sharena is pretty good on her own. Anna needs help and Alfy costs a LOT to get help.

[Othin]

5 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Well, look at the opportunity cost for 5*ing one of the starters: 22 200 feathers for promotions and then SI can easily bring the total cost closer to 30k. This means that you're probably looking at 5-6 Arena seasons just to reach resource parity (granted, those characters can contribute to other things, like the Tenth quests, but still). I think they can pretty safely assume most people will still go for the instant 5* from pulling.

I guess, but trying to pull focus heroes isn't guaranteed. I guess it's easier for me because I want to collect all the ultimate weapons anyway, but still. (Also Sharena ended up as part of my main team.)

It does help the appeal of the focus heroes that you can actually merge them. Also the Askr trio is all melee infantry, so the others can do plenty of things they can't, and Anna and Alfonse aren't even particularly good. There's also redundancy concerns, like I use Hector on my main team so Anna is especially underwhelming.

[DehNutCase]

1 minute ago, Elieson said:

5* Anna is a bit of a chump without a little bit of skill inheritance, because Astra isn't exactly easy to utilize and her offense with Vantage often means that she'll score an early hit to finish someone off but it might not be enough under many cases. She needs a durability boost or damage boost to really push her potential.

 

I 5*'d the starter crew assuming that in worst case scenario, I'll have a bonus unit for every instance. Stock Sharena is pretty good on her own. Anna needs help and Alfy costs a LOT to get help.

Eh... I feel like all 3 of them are fine with minimal inheritance: A single Brash-Assault on Alfonse makes his sub 50% numbers go up to the 60s, which isn't bad at all considering he's below half HP. Add in his Prf trigger and it goes to the 80s, which is flat out absurd.

Anna's job is to 3HKO things using Vantage as an offensive QR, and tank mages. TA3 makes her take 3 dmg from +Atk DB Rein, and obviously she folds Lances like no one's business.

Sharena is the more balanced of the two---pretty slow if you consider her A-slot is already used for +Spd, but decently tanky in return---and she's probably the one with the highest floor but lowest ceiling.

[Elieson]

6 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Anna's job is to 3HKO things using Vantage as an offensive QR, and tank mages. TA3 makes her take 3 dmg from +Atk DB Rein, and obviously she folds Lances like no one's business.

 

Thoughts on Vantage vs Desperation then? I feel like she lacks the oomph to utilize Vantage to do much other than strike once for middling damage on counter. I guess it helps with finishing but Desp lets her be more offensive and it utilizes her speed more so, while Vantage pushes her Str which can't be as easily pushed outside of prox

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

12 minutes ago, Othin said:

I guess, but trying to pull focus heroes isn't guaranteed. I guess it's easier for me because I want to collect all the ultimate weapons anyway, but still. (Also Sharena ended up as part of my main team.)

It does help the appeal of the focus heroes that you can actually merge them. Also the Askr trio is all melee infantry, so the others can do plenty of things they can't, and Anna and Alfonse aren't even particularly good. There's also redundancy concerns, like I use Hector on my main team so Anna is especially underwhelming.

Yeah, Sharena also did serious work for my team, but if one is just building the others for Arena bonus, then it's prohibitively expensive. The people who build all three and use them regularly are likely going to be a pretty small group, so I don't think IS would be too worried. Also, even if the instant 5* isn't guaranteed, a lot of people are going to go for it anyway, given either shiny newness, utility or just plain liking the character.

[DehNutCase]

10 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Thoughts on Vantage vs Desperation then? I feel like she lacks the oomph to utilize Vantage to do much other than strike once for middling damage on counter. I guess it helps with finishing but Desp lets her be more offensive and it utilizes her speed more so, while Vantage pushes her Str which can't be as easily pushed outside of prox

Desperation is decent on her since she has the speed (38 is damn good), but I like keeping the trio's base skills: Lower inheritance requirements, and it let's them keep their 'personality.' It's a pity her special wasn't the dragon line instead---Vantage Anna would've had the perfect charge counts if she had Dragon Fang instead of Astra, double, take counter, vantage to finish perfectly charges 4cd Dragon Fang.

It also feels like that her attack is just barely too low to abuse desperation properly, too much spd, not enough atk, same problem as Setsuna. (L&D 3 is also 5* locked, so there's that too.) Then again, I might just be spoiled by my +Spd Lucina. (And +Atk Cordelia.)

Anyway, I favor TA3 on Anna. Blue mages get shrugged off, lances get folded because she's doubling them back, and she has escape route as a get out of jail free card once she's done with her job. And TA3 is available from 4* Roy, making inheritance easier. (Assuming you can pull a Roy, but TA2 from Selena is probably enough if you can't get a hold of him.)

Edited May 1, 2017 by DehNutCase

[Elieson]

8 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Desperation is decent on her since she has the speed (38 is damn good), but I like keeping the trio's base skills: Lower inheritance requirements, and it let's them keep their 'personality.' It's a pity her special wasn't the dragon line instead---Vantage Anna would've had the perfect charge counts if she had Dragon Fang instead of Astra, double, take counter, vantage to finish perfectly charges 4cd Dragon Fang.

It also feels like that her attack is just barely too low to abuse desperation properly, too much spd, not enough atk, same problem as Setsuna. (L&D 3 is also 5* locked, so there's that too.) Then again, I might just be spoiled by my +Spd Lucina.

Anyway, I favor TA3 on Anna. Blue mages get shrugged off, lances get folded because she's doubling them back, and she has escape route as a get out of jail free card once she's done with her job. And TA3 is available from 4* Roy, making inheritance easier. (Assuming you can pull a Roy, but TA2 from Selena is probably enough if you can't get a hold of him.)

Darting Blow Desperation or Fury Desperation (44/41 respectively) is gigantic, as it doubles basically any other green or blue that Anna's likely to run into. Good call on the TA drop though; it adds durability without adding durability, against the people she's most likely to face. I've got one 4* -Atk Selena that I'm holding onto specifically for Hero Merit but that might just be the wisest dump of a TA2 I could think of. I fed my only Roy's TA3 to a 4* +Atk/-Spd M!Robin for GHB convenience (and i think it's worth keeping) but TA2 sounds nice.

If L&D3 hits the floor on some 4* somewhere, then Desperation would be super nice on her though. I might just buckle and throw on TA2 until some L&D item stumbles into my resevoir.

[Thor Odinson]

Well, looks like Sharena's getting the upgrade after Xander for me. I've been holding off on her a bit because of the bonus unit thing, but as a Nino main she's immensely useful when she's around. if i'm guaranteed to get her for 2 seasons for every 6, then that's worth it for me.

[XeKr]

I promoted Anna from last time she was a bonus character, mainly because I like her rng blessings and needed the green, and I find her to be pretty useful. I run Fury to activate her weapon/Vantage and for a bit of stats. 40+ Spd is great, and her Res can somewhat tank Reinhardt/Linde/Spring!Lucina. She can even distract some Reds, separating the enemy, then tanking a hit and rewarping away. It can be good offensively too, like Linde kills something, Eirika Pivots over her, Anna rewarps to other side of Eirika to kill Ninian/Azura/Linde/Kagero that’s hiding back there. And some good combos with Reposition. She still has Astra for me (which never procs), but might give her Vengeance from Narcian now that we’re getting some GHB maps again. She’s particularly good at supporting my (Linde-centric) team since the biggest threat is Nino, and the ones Eirika can’t ohko, Anna can usually double to kill. Helps vs. Kagero too, to an extent. Ranged units seem stronger overall but I don’t really have any complaints for Anna as a melee Axe. 

1 hour ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Well, look at the opportunity cost for 5*ing one of the starters: 22 200 feathers for promotions and then SI can easily bring the total cost closer to 30k. This means that you're probably looking at 5-6 Arena seasons just to reach resource parity (granted, those characters can contribute to other things, like the Tenth quests, but still). I think they can pretty safely assume most people will still go for the instant 5* from pulling.

Considering it’s possible to get into 5k-10k or 10k-30k ranges with a 4* bonus unit and an unmerged 3-person core (without burning crests for high scoring matches), and some weeks that you can pull a focus character, at most you’re moving up a score bracket or so which is around 500 feathers, meaning it’ll take like 40+ weeks to make up 20k (even more with SI). And this prevents you from 5 starring other characters you may like (more).

then again I have 60k feathers and not sure what to spend it on. It might be time for Blarblade+!Linde.

Edited May 1, 2017 by XeKr

[XeKr]

doublepostsry

Edited May 1, 2017 by XeKr

[Otorio]

No blue bonus units, huh? Looks like my arena score will take a dip this season.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

55 minutes ago, XeKr said:

I promoted Anna from last time she was a bonus character, mainly because I like her rng blessings and needed the green, and I find her to be pretty useful. I run Fury to activate her weapon/Vantage and for a bit of stats. 40+ Spd is great, and her Res can somewhat tank Reinhardt/Linde/Spring!Lucina. She can even distract some Reds, separating the enemy, then tanking a hit and rewarping away. It can be good offensively too, like Linde kills something, Eirika Pivots over her, Anna rewarps to other side of Eirika to kill Ninian/Azura/Linde/Kagero that’s hiding back there. And some good combos with Reposition. She still has Astra for me (which never procs), but might give her Vengeance from Narcian now that we’re getting some GHB maps again. She’s particularly good at supporting my (Linde-centric) team since the biggest threat is Nino, and the ones Eirika can’t ohko, Anna can usually double to kill. Helps vs. Kagero too, to an extent. Ranged units seem stronger overall but I don’t really have any complaints for Anna as a melee Axe. 

Considering it’s possible to get into 5k-10k or 10k-30k ranges with a 4* bonus unit and an unmerged 3-person core (without burning crests for high scoring matches), and some weeks that you can pull a focus character, at most you’re moving up a score bracket or so which is around 500 feathers, meaning it’ll take like 40+ weeks to make up 20k (even more with SI). And this prevents you from 5 starring other characters you may like (more).

then again I have 60k feathers and not sure what to spend it on. It might be time for Blarblade+!Linde.

Good point. I guess that really means that one should really like the character or have some other purpose than Arena in mind for them before considering 5*ing. Under the same cost consideration, that does make 4*ing seem less attractive as well, given even without SI, the cost would still take a while to recover. Granted, having a consistent 4* bonus pool would at least mean that any SI done to other, throwaway 4*s wouldn't be wasted once the two weeks are up.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

idk if I wanna bring 4* Anna or 4* Zephiel. Either way this will suck lol.

[MaskedAmpharos]

I decided at the start of the game that I would eventually 5* the Askr trio, so I guess the fact that it's more or less confirmed they'll be recurring bonus characters is even more incentive to follow through. 

[Silith13]

Hana is in the rotation next week? Time to build a super team then! (I trained Zephiel for nothing Boo)

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Hey, you never know when he might have to kill himself (or Narcian) to get you a few orbs.

[DehNutCase]

14 minutes ago, Silith13 said:

Hana is in the rotation next week? Time to build a super team then! (I trained Zephiel for nothing Boo)

The only downside of Hana being in rotation is that you don't want to inherit skills onto a 5* Hana since she's such good skill fodder. (She's fine if you want to use her, of course, but Lucina's spread blows Hana's out of the water. Dragons hit res, but Lucina has Falchion, meaning her better physical bulk comes into play.)

Perfectly fine as a unit, of course, but it's like the sadness of being Arthur\Charlotte, doesn't matter if you're a great unit if you're even better as pair-up\inheritance fodder.

[Silith13]

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The only downside of Hana being in rotation is that you don't want to inherit skills onto a 5* Hana since she's such good skill fodder. (She's fine if you want to use her, of course, but Lucina's spread blows Hana's out of the water. Dragons hit res, but Lucina has Falchion, meaning her better physical bulk comes into play.)

Perfectly fine as a unit, of course, but it's like the sadness of being Arthur\Charlotte, doesn't matter if you're a great unit if you're even better as pair-up\inheritance fodder.

Lucina is just a bit harder to pull. I got my Hana from my first pull as a 3* and worked her up. He's -HP/+Atk and a total monster.

Also. 71 damage vs those Hectors. Muahahahahaha!

Edited May 1, 2017 by Silith13

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The only downside of Hana being in rotation is that you don't want to inherit skills onto a 5* Hana since she's such good skill fodder. (She's fine if you want to use her, of course, but Lucina's spread blows Hana's out of the water. Dragons hit res, but Lucina has Falchion, meaning her better physical bulk comes into play.)

Hana does the Brave Desperation build better than Lucina due to having 1 more Atk than Lucina and having low enough HP to be able to use Ardent Sacrifice to trigger Desperation even at +10.

[MaskedAmpharos]

7 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The only downside of Hana being in rotation is that you don't want to inherit skills onto a 5* Hana since she's such good skill fodder. (She's fine if you want to use her, of course, but Lucina's spread blows Hana's out of the water. Dragons hit res, but Lucina has Falchion, meaning her better physical bulk comes into play.)

Perfectly fine as a unit, of course, but it's like the sadness of being Arthur\Charlotte, doesn't matter if you're a great unit if you're even better as pair-up\inheritance fodder.

Hana with Brave Sword+ and Desperation arguably performs better than Lucina. 

Not having Falchion hardly matters when you're ORKOing all non-Nowi dragons anyways (and Nowi often runs T-Adept and/or Swordbreaker to counter Falchion nowadays anyways).

Also she's far easier to get merge copies for, which matters for a F2P. 

She's also cuter. Fight me.

[DehNutCase]

7 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Hana does the Brave Desperation build better than Lucina due to having 1 more Atk than Lucina and having low enough HP to be able to use Ardent Sacrifice to trigger Desperation even at +10.

Well, Lucina can trigger desperation by just running into things (it's how I do it in arena). It takes a damn lot to 1HKO her. (It also frees up the assist slot for a reposition ability.)

I don't think of desperation as the thing that needs to come online for Lucina to do her job, I think of it as a way for Lucina to keep doing her job even after her hp gets low. In any case, the brave-desperation builds are probably better done by fliers, due to +6 buff access. No one red has Cordelia level stats, yet, but once someone like her comes around with a sword then Hana doesn't really have a niche anymore.

Edit:

3 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Hana with Brave Sword+ and Desperation arguably performs better than Lucina. 

Not having Falchion hardly matters when you're ORKOing all non-Nowi dragons anyways (and Nowi often runs T-Adept and/or Swordbreaker to counter Falchion nowadays anyways).

Also she's far easier to get merge copies for, which matters for a F2P. 

She's also cuter. Fight me.

Nowi needs T-Adept AND Swordbreaker to beat Falchion users, just T-Adept and Lucina slices her head off, just Breaker and Chrom just straight-up OHKOs. (This is without specials.) And even with both, Dragon Fang Lucina 1HKOs (and with just breaker Luna 1HKOs).

Anyway, comparing Hana and Lucina is mostly a matter of: how much is an assist slot worth (Lucina gets away with not using AS because she can run into things without dying horribly, letting her have swap\reposition\draw back etc.) versus having more wins on offense, how much Falchion's healing is valued---having a late game win condition in running around until you heal up does matter, sometimes, and how easy it is to get more copies. (Hana's edge here isn't as big as it seems, however, due to the demand of L&D on glass-cannons. Sure, you get more copies, but you also use up more. More Lucina is basically only for merging. Though it does make it easier for Hana to have perfect IVs)

Of course, Lucina also does have a slight edge after inheritance: Both of them are pretty much ruined by Sword-breaker, but Vantage also ruins Hana because everyone 1HKOs her. (Lucina can just run around to heal up and survive the 1HKO.)

Both are about the same, to be honest, although Lucina's a bit more flexible in her possible sets (thanks to her stat spread and Falchion access).

Edited May 1, 2017 by DehNutCase