Aether Raids General Thread

[Zelgius]

I finished separating my defence team units from my offense team units. For a while I'd been using mostly the same units, but with different blessings possibly coming into play in the future it was time to use different characters. The units I've chosen would mostly fit a dark affinity which works out well.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Zelgius

[Hilda]

1 hour ago, Zelgius said:

I finished separating my defence team units from my offense team units. For a while I'd been using mostly the same units, but with different blessings possibly coming into play in the future it was time to use different characters. The units I've chosen would mostly fit a dark affinity which works out well.

the blessing system is currently a pita. Especially the legendary vs mythic blessings is the real pita here... i really dont want to split my barracks into a AR OR Arena groups.

[Javi Blizz]

Well, at least today I got 200 lift in ofense. Maybe I’ll be able to keep T20, but it’ll be very close

[Sylphid]

On 19.1.2019 at 2:12 AM, Johann said:

Glad it's working! I think it's especially pronounced if your own Def team/map isn't getting good results, since you'll likely be matched with other people who are taking the -80 hits as your scores would be closer to each other. Meanwhile, the players with extremely challenging maps are usually a bit ahead in Lift since they're probably not taking that -80 hit.

Funnily enough, right after trying it out I actually was getting better defense results than normal as well, though that's balanced out afterwards. On that note though, I should probably start thinking what to do with my defense teams instead of just going with the random grouped in corner thing I did weeks ago and didn't touch again aside from changing bonus units.

17 hours ago, Anacybele said:

I ran into a cheapass matchup today, wow. This team was boxed in by structures, which were then surrounded by trap tiles, including one that dealt damage to everyone. This should not be allowed imo. At least, people shouldn't be allowed to box in their team with structures. This just makes things so so so annoying. :/ I was able to win this battle, but not without a lot of trouble.

I don't mind facing those boxed in teams since they are easy to take out when unable to move and not grouped together. I can definitely see why others would find it annoying though, those aren't the most exciting matches.

8 hours ago, Hilda said:

the blessing system is currently a pita. Especially the legendary vs mythic blessings is the real pita here... i really dont want to split my barracks into a AR OR Arena groups.

I'm a bit divided on this. On one hand I appreciate being forced to use different teams since otherwise I tend to default to one team does it all, despite liking using different units. On the other hand, Heroes is definitely pretty darn heavy handed about it with 8 different blessings.

[Stroud]

So sad that I don't have a second Eir.
If I would make 2 perfect wins tomorrow with 160 lift calculated. I would be in T21. Don't think that I will reach T21 next week with 140 Lift. 
But I can still give it a try. This week was not perfekt and I finally pulled a unit today which could help me on my little def team problem.

Good thing on the other hand. I only played 1 team the whole week and the only thing it can not handle are full armored teams based on stalling. For which I can easily make a back up team. Also need to see if I give L!Azura Def tactics or res Tactis. Sometimes I don't want any atk buff on Athena.

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Stroud

[Chrom-ulent]

Yup, had a defense loss and flubbed on offense. "Good game", I say, crushing the opponent's hand and yanking their arm in my handshake.

Same old Lynhardt + swordcav teams are the ones cutting up my units. We're evenly matched on fortresses, which means they have a massive advantage.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Chrom-ulent

[DLNarshen]

How does nearly every defense team I encounter have Special Spiral Ophelia?  They're all paired with L!Azura too.  My patience for this mode is running real thin. 

[Johann]

6 hours ago, Sylphid said:

Funnily enough, right after trying it out I actually was getting better defense results than normal as well, though that's balanced out afterwards. On that note though, I should probably start thinking what to do with my defense teams instead of just going with the random grouped in corner thing I did weeks ago and didn't touch again aside from changing bonus units.

Coming up with a map that's consistently effective is pretty challenging, especially if you don't have those highly invested units that everyone else seems to have. There are definitely some common tricks I see that work on underprepared players:

• Firesweep Lunge Trap: A packed group with limited approach options, preventing you from getting in safely. At least one unit has a Firesweep Sword/Lance and Lunge, with the idea of pulling you onto a Bolt Trap, which puts that unit in WoM range for dancers to come in.
• Pulse Party: A bunch of infantry units (usually including Ophelia) that ready their specials on turn one, making it extremely dangerous to bait.
• Restore Gambit: Relying on a specific teammate being debuffed, the enemy healer moves into a closer position to use Restore, which triggers the AI to jump the player early.
• Rally Gambit: Similar to the Restore trick (sometimes used in conjunction with it), the player tries to bait a specific unit, but another (seemingly too far to do anything) enemy runs in to Rally them, and gets danced, getting the jump on units who are placed too close.
• Bulky Brick Brigade: Just a bunch of armors packed into a corner with tons of Wards and stuff, with the goal of making you run out of time

I can't count how many times I've run into Infantry Pulse setups where 4 of their units have it, regardless how senseless it would be in any other context (no joke, some of these people likely promoted and fodder'd a Marisa just to give their 38 HP dancer this skill).

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

1 hour ago, DLNarshen said:

How does nearly every defense team I encounter have Special Spiral Ophelia?  They're all paired with L!Azura too.  My patience for this mode is running real thin. 

Well, all the stuff required for that was on recent banners, so it's just a matter of whaling hard enough to dodge any gacha RNG shenanigans.

[Sylphid]

1 hour ago, Johann said:

Coming up with a map that's consistently effective is pretty challenging, especially if you don't have those highly invested units that everyone else seems to have. There are definitely some common tricks I see that work on underprepared players:

• Firesweep Lunge Trap: A packed group with limited approach options, preventing you from getting in safely. At least one unit has a Firesweep Sword/Lance and Lunge, with the idea of pulling you onto a Bolt Trap, which puts that unit in WoM range for dancers to come in.
• Pulse Party: A bunch of infantry units (usually including Ophelia) that ready their specials on turn one, making it extremely dangerous to bait.
• Restore Gambit: Relying on a specific teammate being debuffed, the enemy healer moves into a closer position to use Restore, which triggers the AI to jump the player early.
• Rally Gambit: Similar to the Restore trick (sometimes used in conjunction with it), the player tries to bait a specific unit, but another (seemingly too far to do anything) enemy runs in to Rally them, and gets danced, getting the jump on units who are placed too close.
• Bulky Brick Brigade: Just a bunch of armors packed into a corner with tons of Wards and stuff, with the goal of making you run out of time

I can't count how many times I've run into Infantry Pulse setups where 4 of their units have it, regardless how senseless it would be in any other context (no joke, some of these people likely promoted and fodder'd a Marisa just to give their 38 HP dancer this skill).

Ah. I've definitely seen some of these in the past. Fallen to Rally traps at least, and I've been surprised by Eir getting decimated by an Ophelia or two. 4 Infantry Pulses sounds mighty annoying, but my hat off for the people with that kind of dedication. That said, I don't think specific strategies like this have been too common in the tiers I've been in, it's mostly been combinations of L!Lucina, Veronica, Surtr and most recently L!Azura that I usually see being annoying.

Out of the ones you listed, Firesweep+Lunge sounds like the most feasible one for me to try from resources perspective. Though I can't deny that Infantry Pulse for a more expensive one does sound amusing lol.

 

On different news, I changed up my go-to AR offense team from having A!Tiki and PA!Azura to Nailah and Reyson (other members are summer Micaiah, Eir and Maribelle), and Nailah feels much more useful than Tiki did. As much as I love my +10 Tiki, I found there weren't many units she could actually bait effectively in AR. Still getting used to Reyson on that team though.

EDIT: And I just pulled a dupe Nailah that isn't -atk so she'll just get better.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Sylphid

[Johann]

41 minutes ago, Sylphid said:

Ah. I've definitely seen some of these in the past. Fallen to Rally traps at least, and I've been surprised by Eir getting decimated by an Ophelia or two. 4 Infantry Pulses sounds mighty annoying, but my hat off for the people with that kind of dedication. That said, I don't think specific strategies like this have been too common in the tiers I've been in, it's mostly been combinations of L!Lucina, Veronica, Surtr and most recently L!Azura that I usually see being annoying.

I guess it could be considered dedication, it just seems absurd to me that people would spend that kind of resources (potentially tens of thousands of feathers and a hundred Grails) to maaaybe help get an extra 2 Grails a week.

45 minutes ago, Sylphid said:

Out of the ones you listed, Firesweep+Lunge sounds like the most feasible one for me to try from resources perspective. Though I can't deny that Infantry Pulse for a more expensive one does sound amusing lol.

I used that for a while too but I decided it needed to change once Nailah's B skill was shown. Did you see my Rally/Restore map from a few pages back? Might give you some ideas. Since hitting T21 though, I've just put together a weaponless free map. Reyson would be really useful in a Def map too, him and Leanne are probably the best dancers for sneaky builds short of Legendary Azura.

[Hilda]

13 minutes ago, Johann said:

I guess it could be considered dedication, it just seems absurd to me that people would spend that kind of resources (potentially tens of thousands of feathers and a hundred Grails) to maaaybe help get an extra 2 Grails a week.

I used that for a while too but I decided it needed to change once Nailah's B skill was shown. Did you see my Rally/Restore map from a few pages back? Might give you some ideas. Since hitting T21 though, I've just put together a weaponless free map. Reyson would be really useful in a Def map too, him and Leanne are probably the best dancers for sneaky builds short of Legendary Azura.

Those infantry pulse maps are the ones that give me the most trouble, because no matter the amount of Vantage... there is allways an Ophelia in range with Hardy Bearing ._.

[Sylphid]

14 minutes ago, Johann said:

I guess it could be considered dedication, it just seems absurd to me that people would spend that kind of resources (potentially tens of thousands of feathers and a hundred Grails) to maaaybe help get an extra 2 Grails a week.

I used that for a while too but I decided it needed to change once Nailah's B skill was shown. Did you see my Rally/Restore map from a few pages back? Might give you some ideas. Since hitting T21 though, I've just put together a weaponless free map. Reyson would be really useful in a Def map too, him and Leanne are probably the best dancers for sneaky builds short of Legendary Azura.

Yeah it is rather absurd, but people were already doing it for fun when the skill was released. So why wouldn't they do it when they can also use it to screw with others.

Good point about Nailah making it less effective, though I really should have realized that since I basically use her for that very reason. And no, I must have missed. Will go take a look. As for Reyson, I alredy gave him a light blessing so once other blessings come into play he wouldn't fit in there anymore. But who knows how long that takes so I might as well try him out.

[Johann]

21 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Those infantry pulse maps are the ones that give me the most trouble, because no matter the amount of Vantage... there is allways an Ophelia in range with Hardy Bearing ._.

There was one time I got lucky where, even though the person had 2 Ophelias, I was able to bait everything but that one with Vantage Camus, and then Legendary Lyn took on the HB Ophelia. I woulda just used Lyn for everything but he had a Laevatein mixed in there, so Camus was a must.

12 minutes ago, Sylphid said:

Good point about Nailah making it less effective, though I really should have realized that since I basically use her for that very reason. And no, I must have missed. Will go take a look. As for Reyson, I alredy gave him a light blessing so once other blessings come into play he wouldn't fit in there anymore. But who knows how long that takes so I might as well try him out.

Here's the post with a write-up on how it works

[Xenovia]

Love Aether Raids.  Great team variety.  Love going against Surtr/Aversa/Reinhardt/Veronica/Legendary Azura every match.  Really original stuff here.

 

 

[Azuris]

9 hours ago, Johann said:

I can't count how many times I've run into Infantry Pulse setups where 4 of their units have it, regardless how senseless it would be in any other context (no joke, some of these people likely promoted and fodder'd a Marisa just to give their 38 HP dancer this skill).

Yeah, that is something I don't get as well. It isn't even necessary to get top rewards at the moment and even if it was necessary it would take quite a while to even get back the grails spent for Marissa with the grails you get over the top 6k tier.

On another note I remember when we talked about how great it would be when we reach tier 21 and how it will be more relaxing. And it really is.

Kind of interesting to see how many people come up next light season, if it won't be that much more than 3k that would be nice, to live the low effort maximum rewards AR life some longer, but then that might be selfish.

[DehNutCase]

Had to play today in order to make top 3k safe, feelsbadman. So I only had 1 day off this week. (T20 looks pretty huge, probably like 4-5k ish players, if I had to guess.)

 

On the plus side, my teams are starting to get fleshed out to the point that anything un-optimized is just straight up cheesed to death. (Firesweeps get cheesed by Nailah, Mages without Hardy Bearing (or only one user in a vulnerable spot) get cheesed by Rein, Mages with hardy bearing is a problem, but a few more weeks and I should be able to add Winter Cecilia to the lineup, and I'll just give her a Svalinn shield + bunch of wards + Light Blessing and that'll be that.)

 

Edit: Gonna try out only using Tactics Room + Escape Ladder + Fort on offensive buildings, see if the extra space for consistency in setup ends up feeling nicer than the random bonuses I get when they trigger.

Edited January 21, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

I feel kind of bad sacking Tiki as often as I do (since she has the lowest Res, making her the obvious target of every enemy magic unit), but getting kills on defense just makes it too easy to justify letting a unit die if it will put the enemy team in an easy position to finish off.

 

My second match was a stick-all-of-the-armors-you-can-in-the-corner type of map, which I hadn't seen for a while now. The kind that just gets completely trivialized by Ophelia because Ward Armor does nothing to stop Blazing Wind, meaning I can just snipe them dead while they're stuck trying to leave through the one-square gap in their box.

That placed me in the top 700 about an hour after the daily reset, so I should be safely well above the 3,000 threshold by the end of the season.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Stroud]

What a bad day. I got 2x60 today. But I am still save in Top 3k I guess. I am rank 1,887 now. But damn, the second one was so perfect I just made a little mistake with positioning Aversa. Would have been easy 100. I have 10,120 lift btw.

The fun thing is that in Light season my Athena would have survived...or if I just had pulled for Kliff.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Stroud

[Othin]

9,900 for the week, which looks to be ending up around the 4k mark. Unexciting week, but also not too stressful.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

Had a bit of a chance to mess around with things and see how some new candidated for Light Blessings fared. The main trial was M!Corrin, since Odin has had some situations where he's struggled as a support unit. In general, I'm digging M!Corrin more in the off-season, though he's also overspecialized, so I have to choose just one tank. Granted, if he and Odin are working in tandem, it actually makes most units really durable (just not invincible). M!Corrin got TA3 and Axebreaker because I've been seeing a strangely high amount of "2x Surtr/W!Fae in opposite corners" shenanigans. Highly recommend (special mention to Marth, who I almost considered, since he's not quite as good on boosts, but more versatile, but didn't quite have the raw Atk I was looking for to mash those green stall setups).

-Atk Hardin put in some surprising amount of work. I was worried he'd just bottleneck myself a bit with his lower damage output and no Sinmara, but his special was generally just barely enough of an opening creator not to accidentally stall myself. Considered because people hate Surtr/Fae enough that red spam defenses are still a thing. I'm actually a little torn because I got a +Atk Brave Hector as a pity breaker on the beast banner. I kind of want the more aggressive damage output, but at the same time, his Res isn't as good as Hardin's.

L!Hector was supposed to get test-driven for anti-Ophelia cheese, but they all either had Hardy Bearing or were covered by Lilina and/or dancer!Micaiah. I guess the upshot is I can just throw him in a team "just in case" since he doesn't need blessing investment.

[Nym]

I have a new unit to my raiding party: female Robin with her Tactical gale with spectrum refinement.

With that I can counter all those pesky Reinharts, Veronicas, Eir,  Brave Lyn and L!Azura.

[Jingle Jangle]

I can't get the last orbs for the light blessing quest because of a Surtr and Aversa combo. 72 lift isn't enough for another round, I need 82. Quest needing AR to complete are a pain.

[Nym]

4 minutes ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I can't get the last orbs for the light blessing quest because of a Surtr and Aversa combo. 72 lift isn't enough for another round, I need 82. Quest needing AR to complete are a pain.

Get a red unit with Axebreaker to kill Surtr, my unmerged Aversa can one round them if she's not debuffed.

[Jingle Jangle]

22 minutes ago, Nym said:

Get a red unit with Axebreaker to kill Surtr, my unmerged Aversa can one round them if she's not debuffed.

Yeah I need more axebreaker units, or with units with armor smasher. My only option is Ceada and she can't always one shot him.