Aether Raids General Thread

[mampfoid]

Got zero defense kills (kills, not wins) so far, the daily -80 lift is hard to compensate. 

With 4/4 perfect offensive runs I may have a chance to promote to tier 18. It also depends if I get 7 or 8 defense losses (I find the 20 hour rule confusing). 

7,020 lift (180 missing), 29 Aether, 2 days left. 

/Edit:

@Hilda did you see the guy with 6 +10 Azamas? oO

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by mampfoid

[Hilda]

nope but 6x Azama can be hard to kill with the right setup!!!

[DehNutCase]

5 hours ago, Johann said:

For what it's worth, if you've got a team that can score 140, starting at T19 you can potentially reach a final score of 10,160-- safely above the T20 requirement and with quite a fair amount of room for error on both Offense and Defense. Even if you got hit for -80 every single day, you'd still have 200 Lift worth of wiggle room on Offense. It's interesting that, at those kinds of thresholds, grabbing all the pots can matter more than keeping everybody alive.

I haven't fought against Defense teams of 6 yet though so it might be a bit presumptuous of me to assume that scoring so well will be realistic even for myself. Perhaps my own Defense results will fare better and balance it out, I dunno. I do suspect that the more common Spring Breeze cavalry setups will become less viable as it grows more difficult to place so many units in a corner and keep the pressure, especially as players get used to those tactics and place their ever improving Offense structures in anticipation for them.

If you can build a single team that can handle all possible 6 unit lineups and map configurations then I'd actually have to admit you might be better at team-building than I am---and I'm kind of a freak in that department.

Like I said before, until we get a bunch of free light blessings, 1 Eir + 4 Blessed can only happen for exactly one team, and you don't get to make any mistakes choosing units in the seasons leading up to your 1 Eir + 4 Blessed season, either. (If you blessed 2 armors but realized you actually needed an all flier team to cover everything, for example---two blessings down the drain, right there.)

 

Mind I'm not saying that I can't ever get to T20 with just 140 lift, rather that I can't do it consistently, that is, it might take a few weeks of attempts. (And if I do take weeks presumably I'd have had more chances to roll for Mythics & get any free blessings IS decide to hand out.)

[Johann]

29 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

If you can build a single team that can handle all possible 6 unit lineups and map configurations then I'd actually have to admit you might be better at team-building than I am---and I'm kind of a freak in that department.

Like I said before, until we get a bunch of free light blessings, 1 Eir + 4 Blessed can only happen for exactly one team, and you don't get to make any mistakes choosing units in the seasons leading up to your 1 Eir + 4 Blessed season, either. (If you blessed 2 armors but realized you actually needed an all flier team to cover everything, for example---two blessings down the drain, right there.)

Mind I'm not saying that I can't ever get to T20 with just 140 lift, rather that I can't do it consistently, that is, it might take a few weeks of attempts. (And if I do take weeks presumably I'd have had more chances to roll for Mythics & get any free blessings IS decide to hand out.)

I'd probably rely on stacking as many stat boosts as I can on whoever among that group is the bonus unit, since that's been my strategy for the most part, but yeah I didn't mean to imply that it'd be easy in any way. I dunno who I'm even going to give my extra blessing from today, for that matter (though probably a dancer). For what it's worth, I think even a team with +20 has a reasonable shot at getting to Tier 20, and I'm hopeful that I can pull it off next week. Interestingly, the Legendary banner with Eir will be up a week from today, so there's technically hope of salvaging a bad start of the week.

[Baldrick]

5 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

If you can build a single team that can handle all possible 6 unit lineups and map configurations then I'd actually have to admit you might be better at team-building than I am---and I'm kind of a freak in that department.

My proposal would be two Surtr, one with Svalinn Shield to handle armourslaying weapons, and Hardin to handle reds. I doubt it would handle all possible teams, but it'd probably be fairly consistent.

Mythic Heroes are good if you just aim to reach T21, since that's a score threshold rather than a ranking, and you only need to achieve it once. If you aim to consistently reach the top 3k, you'd not only have to pull 30 Eirs and 30 Dark Mythics when that one comes out (on a legendary banner to boot), but your teambuilding is restricted by only having one slot for a non-Mythic non-bonus unit.

Edited December 21, 2018 by Baldrick

[DehNutCase]

33 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

My proposal would be two Surtr, one with Svalinn Shield to handle armourslaying weapons, and Hardin to handle reds. I doubt it would handle all possible teams, but it'd probably be fairly consistent.

Mythic Heroes are good if you just aim to reach T21, since that's a score threshold rather than a ranking, and you only need to achieve it once. If you aim to consistently reach the top 3k, you'd not only have to pull 30 Eirs and 30 Dark Mythics when that one comes out (on a legendary banner to boot), but your teambuilding is restricted by only having one slot for a non-Mythic non-bonus unit.

If you're gonna use 2 5* exclusives why not just pull Eir to begin with?

: /

[Baldrick]

11 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

If you're gonna use 2 5* exclusives why not just pull Eir to begin with?

: /

Because everyone gets a free Eir to make a 140 team, which is the context specified by Johann.

[Azuris]

56 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

If you aim to consistently reach the top 3k, you'd not only have to pull 30 Eirs and 30 Dark Mythics when that one comes out (on a legendary banner to boot), but your teambuilding is restricted by only having one slot for a non-Mythic non-bonus unit.

Do you think 3000 people will do this? That's insane, no way I am doing this. But I may take it easy anyway after testing if I can go to tier 21.

[DehNutCase]

17 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Because everyone gets a free Eir to make a 140 team, which is the context specified by Johann.

What I meant was:

2 Surtr + 1 Hardin isn't cheaper than 2 Eir, or even 3 Eir, for that matter.

 

The main reason Eir is an issue is because you can't get her, which is a resource problem. Replacing a 5* exclusive (Eir) with other 5* exclusives don't decrease the team-building problems enough to matter. Edit: It's slightly better in that you don't have to have the exact 5* exclusive (like how running only flying Azura is a bit more restrictive than running any flying dancer), but not near the level of ease of, say, running Xander with a bunch of Ward horses, some of the best of which are 3* or 4*.

 

Edit: @Azuris Mind that stacking a bunch of mythics makes it so that people who aren't in top ~10k can arrive at T21, meaning the number might be fairly large, depending on how many whales there are.

Edited December 22, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Baldrick]

7 minutes ago, Azuris said:

Do you think 3000 people will do this?

Probably not, but it would give you the most margin.

7 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

What I meant was:

2 Surtr + 1 Hardin isn't cheaper than 2 Eir, or even 3 Eir, for that matter.

So? The discussion is about whether it is possible for a 140 team to reach T20, not about how much it costs. If you're going to move the goalposts to require getting into T20 with a F2P team, just say so.

[DehNutCase]

2 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

So? The discussion is about whether it is possible for a 140 team to reach T20, not about how much it costs. If you're going to move the goalposts to require getting into T20 with a F2P team, just say so.

That's fine. Basically, what I meant by 140 lift/fight being difficult was that the kind of people doing 140 lift/fight is on a shoe-string budget.

 

I was not talking about people who deliberately whale +10 Surtrs but only run 1 Eir for whatever reason. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Azuris]

8 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Mind that stacking a bunch of mythics makes it so that people who aren't in top ~10k can arrive at T21, meaning the number might be fairly large, depending on how many whales there are.

The thing I don't get: What's the point?

I am in it for the grails. To be honest I am baffled I even could keep up this long, because I don't consider myself very good at this game.

But to get Eir to +10 three times, and it doesn't stop there you would have to do it with every blessing type, to get a few more grails every week and get a finished grail unit some weeks in advance. I mean you could as well use all these orbs to get yourself a lot of units you want from new banners and wouldn't even need the grail units. Yes, you still get a shiny mythic hero. But three times? Where else would you ever use 3 Eirs at the same time?

Maybe your name on the ladder is just that important and I'm just not the type for this?

[Baldrick]

6 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

That's fine. Basically, what I meant by 140 lift/fight being difficult was that the kind of people doing 140 lift/fight is on a shoe-string budget.

On 12/21/2018 at 7:44 AM, DehNutCase said:

 Hell, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle getting into T20 with 140 lift/fight,

For clarification, do you consider your team "shoe-string budget"?

6 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

 

I was not talking about people who deliberately whale +10 Surtrs but only run 1 Eir for whatever reason. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Do you think I was suggesting +10 Surtr?

 

[DehNutCase]

29 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

For clarification, do you consider your team "shoe-string budget"?

My main team? Gods no, it needs a 5* exclusive all the time & has 2 +10s. (Although only Cordelia needs to be +10).

 

Horse Lyn is easily replaceable but Azura isn't---the team needs a flying dancer to function, period, and Azura is the only one that comes with Hone Fliers. Reinhardt can be downgraded, but Cordelia needs to be +10 to be consistent (or have my summoner support at +5).

 

Shoe String budget would be the Xander team I might be running 2 weeks down the line, which will have a bunch of horses with wards.

29 minutes ago, Baldrick said:

Do you think I was suggesting +10 Surtr?

No, but from what you've said +10 Surtr is an option, since you didn't consider budget to be one of the requirements of the 140 lift/fight problem. Or, what, do you have some specific resource limit that allows a bunch of 5* exclusives but not high level merges on them?

 

 

Edit:

37 minutes ago, Azuris said:

I am in it for the grails. To be honest I am baffled I even could keep up this long, because I don't consider myself very good at this game.

 

AR measures being consistently good. I'm pretty sure you're around my level, but you're also a bit more consistent---so even if you are worse than me (which I doubt)---the fact that you're more consistent means you perform better.

37 minutes ago, Azuris said:

But to get Eir to +10 three times, and it doesn't stop there you would have to do it with every blessing type, to get a few more grails every week and get a finished grail unit some weeks in advance. I mean you could as well use all these orbs to get yourself a lot of units you want from new banners and wouldn't even need the grail units. Yes, you still get a shiny mythic hero. But three times? Where else would you ever use 3 Eirs at the same time?

Maybe your name on the ladder is just that important and I'm just not the type for this?

I'm also in it for the grails---my napkin math says I need ~5k grails per +10, and I'd much rather spend, say, 600 orbs pulling 2 extra copies of Eir than the ~2k ish you'd usually need to +10 a 5* exclusive. But the biggest reason I'm willing to pull for Eir is that 3 copies is actually one of the optimal strategies. Outside Aether Raids Eir would be around 8/10 if I had to guess, but inside AR she's a 10/10 support by my standards, with the weird quirk where she gets better as you run more of her.

This is because she's a flier with Ward access (which stacks), and the blessing stats also stack, so you can make some hilarious tanky units, and, because Iceberg and Glacies exist, they're also hilariously good at killing people.

I'm basically pulling her for QoL, since AR is a lot more relaxing if you can afford to tank a loss a fight and still score better than someone playing perfectly, and triple Eir teams are easier to pilot than my usual teams.

 

My name on the ladder is nice---and I used it to get a good measure of the level of the people playing FEH---but I don't really care too much about it. (There's a reason I bounce around T17-T19 in arena, after all.)

That said, there are people who care about it. And most of them are average players, meaning they need to cover up the lack of skill with an abundance of resources. (AR before Mythics was probably a nightmare for the people who couldn't climb consistently despite a bunch of +10s, since it showed them quite clearly something arena doesn't.)

Edited December 22, 2018 by DehNutCase

[Baldrick]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

No, but from what you've said +10 Surtr is an option, since you didn't consider budget to be one of the requirements of the 140 lift/fight problem.

The reason why Surtr is a good unit is his weapon, statline, and skills, all of which he has at +0. I resent the implication you made that I was specifying +10 Surtr.

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Or, what, do you have some specific resource limit that allows a bunch of 5* exclusives but not high level merges on them?

I play Heroes to collect units, but that's not really relevant to the topic at hand.

[DehNutCase]

Just now, Baldrick said:

The reason why Surtr is a good unit is his weapon, statline, and skills, all of which he has at +0. I resent the implication you made that I was specifying +10 Surtr.

Ah, sorry, that's not quite what I meant.

I meant that if resource wasn't a consideration +0 and +10 Surtr are identical except in terms of performance, in which case you might as well pretend you have a +10 Surtr. The team you've suggested had four 5* exclusives on it, Surtr, Surtr, Eir, and Hardin---if you allow that much there's not much reason to assume you can't just pull 2 more Eirs or +10 Surtr.

The fact that you didn't allow the pull 2 more Eir option meant that we were instead dealing with an edge case of someone who only wanted to run 1 Eir for whatever reason.

[Baldrick]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The team you've suggested had four 5* exclusives on it, Surtr, Surtr, Eir, and Hardin---if you allow that much there's not much reason to assume you can't just pull 2 more Eirs or +10 Surtr.

Fair enough. My team would only optimise performance, a second Eir would optimise both performance and score.

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

The fact that you didn't allow the pull 2 more Eir option meant that we were instead dealing with an edge case of someone who only wanted to run 1 Eir for whatever reason.

We're dealing with the cases of people who only have 1 Eir. Anyone with multiple Eir should score 160+.

[Azuris]

24 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

AR measures being consistently good. I'm pretty sure you're around my level, but you're also a bit more consistent---so even if you are worse than me (which I doubt)---the fact that you're more consistent means you perform better.

That is kind of you to say, but I can easily tell by the amount of game knowledge your posts possess, that you are far better than me. And being consistent might end soon as well, considering some of the defense teams I keep seeing.

 

39 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

I'm also in it for the grails---my napkin math says I need ~5k grails per +10, and I'd much rather spend, say, 600 orbs pulling 2 extra copies of Eir than the ~2k ish you'd usually need to +10 a 5* exclusive. But the biggest reason I'm willing to pull for Eir is that 3 copies is actually one of the optimal strategies.

Yes, that is totally reasonable. I pulled for some myself and I will also pull for 2 copies of the defensive ones to help some. I was talking about multiple +10 Eirs, that would be a lot of orbs and bears no relation to the rewards.

 

46 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

AR before Mythics was probably a nightmare for the people who couldn't climb consistently despite a bunch of +10s, since it showed them quite clearly something arena doesn't.

Do you really think there are people like that? Having my units at +10 would be such a boost, that it would make everything easier.

[DehNutCase]

2 minutes ago, Azuris said:

Do you really think there are people like that? Having my units at +10 would be such a boost, that it would make everything easier.

It makes things easier, but it doesn't make things easy. SF has a huge collection of people who are just fire emblem freaks---the average is probably quite a bit worse---if the top defense teams are challenging for the top players in SF then it's probably a nightmare for the average player, +4 all stats or no.

9 minutes ago, Azuris said:

Yes, that is totally reasonable. I pulled for some myself and I will also pull for 2 copies of the defensive ones to help some. I was talking about multiple +10 Eirs, that would be a lot of orbs and bears no relation to the rewards.

I mean, every +10 Eir is an extra unit you can lose every day (assuming 2 fights/day). Mind, I'd guess that there aren't 3k people who'd go crazy with Eir merges, but IS clearly expects that there would at least be some, or else they wouldn't have designed the lift bonus that way.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

I think the point is that there's not going to be 3k or more people who will do it. IS wanted to put in a big, rare status symbol that takes a lot of money to get that can go beyond the typical 5*-exclusive +10. What better than multiple 5*-exclusive +10s that are only particularly useful in one mode half the time?

[Othin]

I'm at rank 409 with my relatively basic cavalry team, so this mode definitely isn't packed with people going absolutely crazy at this point.

Didn't get a defense fight today, so I should be good for making it into Tier 19 as long as I can get four wins in the remaining two days. I think I can barely manage it if I get all the aether structures, and I've still got an escape tunnel to help.

[a bear]

6 hours ago, DehNutCase said:

I'm also in it for the grails---my napkin math says I need ~5k grails per +10, and I'd much rather spend, say, 600 orbs pulling 2 extra copies of Eir than the ~2k ish you'd usually need to +10 a 5* exclusive. But the biggest reason I'm willing to pull for Eir is that 3 copies is actually one of the optimal strategies. Outside Aether Raids Eir would be around 8/10 if I had to guess, but inside AR she's a 10/10 support by my standards, with the weird quirk where she gets better as you run more of her.

Remember that at +0 merges, 2:3 Eirs to others is score-equivalent to a 3:2 team (+60). I’m not sure how much +5 HP/Res means to those two units, but I’d hate to bringing in a third copy of any unit that wasn’t a dancer or otherwise extremely flexible/powerful. Might as well merge or feed at that point.

Also note that at 160 lift per battle (pull a second Eir and play AR five times this week), you have a huge lift safety net in terms of fuck ups and defense losses up until trying for T21. You could lose 560 from 7 failed defenses, take 24 deaths and miss about 6 pots (outside the first Monday fight) in about 14 fights... and you’d still go from T19 to T20. 

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, a bear said:

Remember that at +0 merges, 2:3 Eirs to others is score-equivalent to a 3:2 team (+60). I’m not sure how much +5 HP/Res means to those two units, but I’d hate to bringing in a third copy of any unit that wasn’t a dancer or otherwise extremely flexible/powerful. Might as well merge or feed at that point.

Also note that at 160 lift per battle (pull a second Eir and play AR five times this week), you have a huge lift safety net in terms of fuck ups and defense losses up until trying for T21. You could lose 560 from 7 failed defenses, take 24 deaths and miss about 6 pots (outside the first Monday fight) in about 14 fights... and you’d still go from T19 to T20. 

Atk, Res, and Def all get better the more of it you already have. And because of how stat spread works, +Res is +Def, since you can just swap to a unit with less res but more def if you're expecting to be buffed like crazy in one direction.

It also helps that running 3 Eir means you need less units you need to bless for max score, since light blessings are also a limitation if you don't have a ton of Eir pulled. 5 team slots don't mean anything if you only have enough blessings to make one team, after all.

 

Besides, I'm perfectly capable of fucking up hilariously---just because I'm good doesn't mean I'm consistent. (And the biggest danger is flat out losing rather than just losing units---flat out losing is worth 8 deaths and two lost pots.)

[DLNarshen]

Anyone have any success using Leo in this mode?  I’m looking through potential candidates for Ward-stacking strats, and Leo is seeming like a solid choice.  Good mixed bulk, a Prf tome catered towards tanking ranged threats, and he even has QR already.  His Atk is a bit low, so one Hone Cavalry might be necessary as well. Now if only Close Counter fodder weren’t so hard to come by... =[

[DehNutCase]

2 minutes ago, DLNarshen said:

Anyone have any success using Leo in this mode?  I’m looking through potential candidates for Ward-stacking strats, and Leo is seeming like a solid choice.  Good mixed bulk, a Prf tome catered towards tanking ranged threats, and he even has QR already.  His Atk is a bit low, so one Hone Cavalry might be necessary as well. Now if only Close Counter fodder weren’t so hard to come by... =[

I have a few defense replays that has Leo in a classic horse emblem -blade & hone stacking setup. My issue with Leo is that he doesn't quite have enough bulk to fight the strongest defense lineups that rely on stacking threat ranges. He's good as a 'pocket' strategy you bring in (an armor emblem + an horse emblem team should cover pretty much everything), but the problem with 'pocket' strategies is that they cost a lot of blessings.

 

Off-topic: Completely bombed my match today---didn't check to see if Horse Lyn kept Sacae's, so Surtr ended up soloing everyone, lul. (I was fine if I brought in my other armor emblem team, the one with a non-DC Surtr, but I'm relaxing way too much.)

I have 2 matches tomorrow and am at 8,100 lift, though, so I should be fine unless I turn brain-dead. (Which, as always, is a real possibility.)