Arena Discussion Thread (inc. Assault)

[Vaximillian]

7 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Not so sure about Soren tbh, especially since I know yours doesn't have much skill inheritance on him. 

You could probably replace him with Lilina?

Mine has Fury 3, Lancebreaker 2, Iceberg, and Swap.

Lilina is a cutest girl mage of them all indeed (after Lute) but I'm just not sure of anything.

[MaskedAmpharos]

2 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

Mine has Fury 3, Lancebreaker 2, Iceberg, and Swap.

Lilina is a cutest girl mage of them all indeed (after Lute) but I'm just not sure of anything.

As it is right now, a single well-played Hector or Nino could run all over your team. 

I'd suggest tentatively replacing Soren with Lilina on defense and seeing how that works out. 

You can always switch back if it doesn't work. 

[Taim Meich]

After a first run with one death and fielding once my 4* Tharja by mistake, I got the 7 deathless run with all 5*:

Spoiler

I guess that with my team, getting pass the 4800 mark implies always fishing for the 686 score opponent, but that's more work than what I'm willing to do. I'm pretty satisfied with the team:

Spoiler

Ike: +HP -Res, Ragnell / Heavy Blade 3 / Swordbreaker 3 / Spur Atk 2 / Luna / Reposition

Soren: +HP -Atk, Gronnraven+ / TA / G Tomebreaker 3 / Fortify Res / Moonbow / Draw Back / [Atk +1 seal]

Tharja: +HP -Def, Blade+ / Darting Blow 3 / Desperation 3 / Spur Res 3 / Moonbow / Draw Back / [Speed +2 seal]

Ephraim: +Spd -Res, Siegmund / Fury 3 / Lancebreaker 2 / Hone Spd 3 / Moonbow / Rally Defense / [HP +3 seal]

 

Big thanks to @MrSmokestack for the help in team composition, specially for the Raven TA Soren, who has been the MVP of the team, eating grays and specially a ton of blues alive.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Taim Meich
Incomplete team

[Vaximillian]

2 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

As it is right now, a single well-played Hector or Nino could run all over your team. 

I'd suggest tentatively replacing Soren with Lilina on defense and seeing how that works out. 

You can always switch back if it doesn't work. 

In what order do I place them then? Sharena has Rally Atk, Reinhardt has Reposition, Ninian has Dance (duh), and Lilina's assist slot is empty.

[MrSmokestack]

@Taim Meich, glad to hear that mention! It's only going to get tougher to get a good ranking from here, but we're always here to help! I know I needed it when I first started playing.

Quick question, if you don't mind: What matters more in Arena to you--getting a high score or just getting the feather payout?

[MaskedAmpharos]

5 minutes ago, Vaximillian said:

In what order do I place them then? Sharena has Rally Atk, Reinhardt has Reposition, Ninian has Dance (duh), and Lilina's assist slot is empty.

The order you listed seems fine honestly, though I'd probably swap Rein and Lilina. 

This way, Ninian boosts and can dance either Lilina or Reinhardt (and you generally want your dancers dancing ranged units).

Also, I prefer Reinhardt on the edge because this makes it less likely for him to run away from the rest of the team since he'll often have to start at the edge of a map. 

And if you're doing that, it's better for him to be on the very right than the very left simply because 

A) People are likely to skip out on a Rein lead

B) Sharena's a cute

[Vaximillian]

1 minute ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

A) People are likely to skip out on a Rein lead
B) Sharena's a cute

A) Of course I wasn't going to make Reinhardt lead.
B) That she is :3

[Taim Meich]

1 minute ago, MrSmokestack said:

Quick question, if you don't mind: What matters more in Arena to you--getting a high score or just getting the feather payout?

A combination of both. I take the game leisurely, as a side game (although this last week I've being playing a lot, after getting Ike, Soren and Titania, with all the grinding and such), but I'm a theorycrafter and minmaxer by nature, so I tend to put a lot of mental effort even in this case. The higher feather payout associated with a good rank is great, of course, but actually facing well-built teams and defeating them with the team I constructed is better. I don't care that much about the score, otherwise I'd be spending several of my 91 dueling crests in order to retry for the highest score per opponent, but I do care enough to at least go for a deathless 7 win streak every week. If, one week, I don't have any of the bonus units at 5* or trained... Oh, well, I'll include it there anyway and do a low score run to get past 4k, then maybe a few runs with a good team to experience good competition.

I'm juggling too many games at the moment (finishing Revelations, Bloodborne, Street Fighter V, and FEH) to devote that much time to one, but getting Ike surely has increased my play time with FEH a lot :)

[MrSmokestack]

@Taim Meich, interesting. I mostly do Arena for the sake of getting a high score, since it's a broad enough goal that the feather payout is secondary. At the moment, I've been pretty busy so I haven't had much time for other games, but Heroes is bite-sized enough that I can play quick bursts in passing. I like your mindset!

[KinoSei]

So I haven't been playing FE Heroes for a little bit and as such, I didn't really grind or pull any characters for this arena rotation, except the 5 star Anna I had on hand. I'm having a lot of trouble pulling off a deathless run with her cause I ended up just slapping her onto another team with an axe user (Minerva), and the best I've done was lose one unit in one of my matches after using 7 dueling crests; seeing as how there will be one more week of these bonus heroes, any suggestions on her skillset and team comp would be much appreciated.

Here's my score and team: 4796 with

Anna:  Noatun | Draw Back/Reciprocal Aid | Glimmer | Triangle Adept 3/Fury 3 | Vantage 3/Desperation 3 | Fortify Def 3 | Attack +1

Linde [+Spd, -Res]: Blarrblade (no plus, cause no feathers for 5 star Odin) | Ardent Sacrifice/Reposition | Moonbow | Life and Death 2/Fury 3 | Vantage 3/Desperation 3 | Threaten Res 3

Ephraim [+Atk, -HP]: Siegmund | Rally Resistance | Moonbow | Fury 3 | Swordbreaker 3/Lancebreaker 2 | Hone Speed 3 | HP +3

Tiki (Y) [+HP, -Res]: Lightning Breath+ | Reposition/Swap | Moonbow | Triangle Adept 3 | Quick Riposte 2 | Threaten Speed 3 | Speed +1

EDIT: Also, planning on grinding Xander once I hit 20k feathers, so I wanted to hear thoughts on Heavy Blade with Bonfire/Ignis on him if placed on a Horse Emblem team cause I pulled a -Atk Ike which I'm not sure if I want to use; seeing as how I only have one more 4 star Subaki for QR2.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by KinoSei

[Okigen]

My defense wins suddenly increased significantly after Hector being put as the lead (like, I already got more than 10 wins now). Does a Hector lead make an account look that attractive? '_' I was actually worried that people will skip him because WoM. I only switched Takumi and Hector's position so that Hector will be placed in the front and save 1 square, considering how slow he moves.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Armours are typically seen as easy prey (and usually are), so people probably jumped right in and didn't pay attention to the WoM.

[Othin]

7 hours ago, ignis_z said:

How is posible you win 4800 points in Coliseum without a Hero of the week? I cant reach more than 4100...

You can't even get 4100 without a bonus hero, since that means getting half points.

[Xaos Steel Wing]

2 hours ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Armours are typically seen as easy prey (and usually are), so people probably jumped right in and didn't pay attention to the WoM.

That happened to me the other day. Didn't notice that Hector had Wings of Mercy and lost a unit because of it... on the 6th win in a row.

And that's why you always check the skills of enemy units before engaging in the arena.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Yep. I actually make a point of opening each and every enemy unit's full stat page and have a spreadsheet where I note their merges and any oddities in skills (usually anything SI, though I'll also note when they use unfavourable skills from their base kit). This serves the dual purpose of getting me intimately familiar with my current opponents and giving me records to look at for trends when I go to make SI choices.

[LordFrigid]

4 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

Yep. I actually make a point of opening each and every enemy unit's full stat page and have a spreadsheet where I note their merges and any oddities in skills (usually anything SI, though I'll also note when they use unfavourable skills from their base kit). This serves the dual purpose of getting me intimately familiar with my current opponents and giving me records to look at for trends when I go to make SI choices.

Kindred spirit detected. I've actually taken to recording the max point value of the enemy team too recently...in case I ever feel like trying to do something with that, idk. I don't really strike myself as the type of person who would want to go and figure that out though, so...*shrug*.

Might as well do a rank update while I'm here.

4930 points:

5pm PDT 5/2: 184

4pm PDT 5/3: 315

Fliers have 5 defensive wins to their name, with the highest at 288 points.

[GinRei]

This is making me want to put WoM on my Hector and toss him into my defense team... but that's such a crapshoot that it isn't worth all the feathers it'd take to do so.  Especially since I do want to eventually feather some units to 5-star.

[Maymeimai]

Spoiler

 

Deathless run, i'll certainly drop some ranks untill the end of the week, but its ok (if you thought that bunnilla is a gronnblade+ you are absolutely right)

I just need some defense wins but its hard for me, im not lucky with those lol

[Exoplayer]

Currently im so tired of this game, it's just annoying against some merged units team with dancer and cavalry.

the arena matchmaking system is so terrible and contradictory because of the fact that i still don't gain anything from characters with high base stats. As example i played last season with Michalis, Sharena, Roy +1 and Anna. They have a total of 632 base stat with all skills learned. Now i dediced to unlock my Donny to 5*, because of his good base stat and have now a total base stat of 637, but it seems the matchmaking is only getting worse and the points each match are lower than last season. Im starting to think, that they favoured merged units than some crap base stats, so in the end it didn't change anything from 1.1.1. In fact i liked the Fury Emblem more than the current arena system.

[MrSmokestack]

2 minutes ago, Exoplayer said:

Currently im so tired of this game, it's just annoying against some merged units team with dancer and cavalry.

the arena matchmaking system is so terrible and contradictory because of the fact that i still don't gain anything from characters with high base stats. As example i played last season with Michalis, Sharena, Roy +1 and Anna. They have a total of 632 base stat with all skills learned. Now i dediced to unlock my Donny to 5*, because of his good base stat and have now a total base stat of 637, but it seems the matchmaking is only getting worse and the points each match are lower than last season. Im starting to think, that they favoured merged units than some crap base stats, so in the end it didn't change anything from 1.1.1. In fact i liked the Fury Emblem more than the current arena system.

But base stat totals matter much less now than pre-patch. The system does favor merged units though, since that makes paid players more likely to rank high compared to free ones.

[MaskedAmpharos]

13 minutes ago, Exoplayer said:

Currently im so tired of this game, it's just annoying against some merged units team with dancer and cavalry.

the arena matchmaking system is so terrible and contradictory because of the fact that i still don't gain anything from characters with high base stats. As example i played last season with Michalis, Sharena, Roy +1 and Anna. They have a total of 632 base stat with all skills learned. Now i dediced to unlock my Donny to 5*, because of his good base stat and have now a total base stat of 637, but it seems the matchmaking is only getting worse and the points each match are lower than last season. Im starting to think, that they favoured merged units than some crap base stats, so in the end it didn't change anything from 1.1.1. In fact i liked the Fury Emblem more than the current arena system.

Base stats barely matter anymore. Merged stats and skill levels factor far more into matchmaking. 

I did also favor the old matchmaking system more but for completely selfish reasons. It's far harder for me to rank in top 1k after the update because I don't have high merge levels. I only had Fury and high BST units to help me rank. 

After the update, the BST of my units barely matters. All that matters are merge levels, and I don't have the money (or luck) to have high merge levels on any of my units RIP

[Eridras]

Horse Emblem makes it pretty simple to get that deathless run stress-free. I'm surprised that going from 5*Azura last week to 4*Clarine this week is just a difference of 18 points. However, given how packed people are in this score range, I may drop from top 10k to out of top 30k. I'll spend the remainder of my swords this week hunting for higher score opponents. 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Eridras

[Exoplayer]

@MaskedAmpharos I know that feeling, i did reach one time the top 1k too, when fury was mandatory. Seliph at the time was one with the highest BST, but now he's just a lackluster and can't do anything. Maybe im sacrificing or send him home as he is useless anyway. It's just sad that im tryharding so much, but i can see clearly how worse my ranking gets each week, althrough i sometimes did score well. 

[Rafiel's Aria]

Decided to switch to Hana instead of Clarine for this season. Man. Oh. Man. That was a good idea. I was struggling on the first day of the season, but the second day, I wrecked. Right now Hana is level 30 (on a team with Nino, M. Robin, and Lucina.) I'm actually thinking of upgrading her to 4 stars...and then spending another 2000 feathers to upgrade a Lon'qu to give her Vantage 3. That'll bump me back down to 14000 feathers, but I think I'll be able to get up to 22000 before the Arena line-up changes to upgrade Alfonse. 

[MrSmokestack]

15 minutes ago, Rafiel's Aria said:

Decided to switch to Hana instead of Clarine for this season. Man. Oh. Man. That was a good idea. I was struggling on the first day of the season, but the second day, I wrecked. Right now Hana is level 30 (on a team with Nino, M. Robin, and Lucina.) I'm actually thinking of upgrading her to 4 stars...and then spending another 2000 feathers to upgrade a Lon'qu to give her Vantage 3. That'll bump me back down to 14000 feathers, but I think I'll be able to get up to 22000 before the Arena line-up changes to upgrade Alfonse. 

I bumped my Hana to 5* for this season, and she cleaned house incredibly well. Best Lucina sub I've ever used.

Don't give her Vantage though, her counters aren't strong enough to compensate for her defenses. I personally went Brave since she had LaD already. With +Atk and an Atk seal, she can cleave through quite a few high-def enemies incredibly well.