Just before the latest update to the arena scoring system, I was maintaining tier 20.75, where I was able to maintain tier 21 on most weeks, but sometimes, I dropped back to tier 20.
However, after the new changes where if the bonus unit gets one kill, you get 12 bonus points occurred, my tier has been downgraded to tier 20.5.
Note: I am still F2P btw and haven’t spent a single dollar on the game.
With my current arena core units, I’m able to score 748 per match +12 = 760/match, which results in 3800 points. The point value required to maintain tier 21 fluctuates from week to week, depending on the bonus units. For example, when L!Ike was the bonus unit, the score minimum required to maintain tier 21 was more than 3820 (752+12/match) which is much too high for me.
Before the change, I was able to maintain tier 21 on most weeks, assuming the bonus unit was capable of getting all 12 extra points my themselves (I couldn’t do it on Gunnthra’s season). But now, after the change, I’m currently floating between these two tiers because the score cutoff is much too high for me at the moment. I would have to inherit some dual rallies, and probably invest in a legendary hero with rotating core units in order to maximize the scoring if I want to maintain tier 21 every week.
I know my team isn’t the highest scoring possible team, but at the moment, I’m unable to maintain tier 21 with my current team. The difference is one orb and a few feathers every other week, and we all know how precious each orb is, especially to us F2P players.
My Current Arena Team
Here’s my current arena core units, and usually what I would do is just merge +1 the bonus unit (usually a tempest trials unit or GHB unit), change their weapon to an armor-effective weapon, and make sure all of their skills were high-scoring by inheriting any missing skills. If anything was missing, my go-to skills of choice would be:
- Assist: Dual Rally (Spd/Def, Spd/Res, or Def/Res)
- Special: Aether
- A-Skill: Brazen Atk/Def
- B-Skill: Renewal
- C-Skill: Atk Smoke or Spur Def/Res
The reason I would inherit these skills was because they were cheap. I’m able to fodder Brazen Atk/Def 3 because I’ve already +10’d my Ares, so I have no more need for it.
Compared to my previous arena core, I’ve basically swapped out the lower-scoring units of Ares and Nowi, and am using Astram, Ylgr, and Est as my arena core units.
Astram is a good support unit. He’s mostly fast enough to not get doubled by common arena threats like Colorless Tiki with special fighter, and can tank a lot of stuff without dying, due to his sizable bulk. Additionally, his spectrum buffs help out a lot, since most of my team is running drives.
Est is just there for drive support and for scoring. Unfortunately, she’s pretty squishy and dies to a lot of things, and is much too slow for the current arena meta. I can’t replace her weapon to be a more supportive one because her current weapon is a preference weapon, meaning that if I change it out, then it’s not as high scoring.
Ylgr is pretty good as well, just there for scoring. Since she won’t get doubled by Legendary Azura, I can use her to bait Legendary Azura most of the time. L!Azuras that I face in the arena are usually +10, which have 48 Atk, meaning that she’ll do more than 5 damage to Ylgr. Additionally, I’m running the Chill Spd seal because my bonus unit needs to get the kill, and often times the enemy is just too fast for my slow bonus unit. Slow-ish bonus units like Sigrun, and Rutger, although won’t get doubled often, need help in doubling back themselves.
Below are the units I would usually use as my bonus unit. These are two examples of stuff that I would build. The bond seal is there because my playstyle is usually more tanking than offensive plays.
First Time Reaching Tier 21
The week of Sunday, July 7, 2019 was when I really tried hard to get into tier 21.
At that time, I managed to go from tier 20 to 21 with my team of Ares+10, Est+10, Nowi+10, and Ylgr+1 (bonus unit). I chose to invest into Ylgr because she was a bonus unit, and on top of that, I needed a physical green unit, preferrably one with with a high BST, which Ylgr fit into.
I managed to score 3772, which placed me in a really high ranking.
And of course, I got promoted to tier 21, and also got the extra orb compared to being in tier 20.
My Previous Team
This was my old arena team and what I used to think:
Ares
Here’s my Ares. His IVs are +Atk and -Def. Whenever he attacks someone or someone attacks him and survives, his special cooldown will pretty much stay charged due to his amazing weapon. Placing Vantage on him makes it so that he can easily bait mages and many other units without taking damage, due to his enormously high attack. Ares is great on offense and defense, though he’s vulnerable to many blue mages with more than 50 attack, as he can get one-shot by them.
Ares excels at arena combat, where I’m currently facing many Green and red units. When given the Hone Cavalry buff, his speed reaches 36, meaning that he prevents doubles from most units I face in the upper levels of arena. He can take on Zelgius and Black Knight easily. Ares attacks first, then Black Knight retaliates and Ares is now in Vantage Range and his Draconic Aura is charged. Then it’s the enemy’s turn and Ares Vantages Black Knight and he’s destroyed.
Ares is such a great unit to have on my offense and defense team, as he can one-shot the green dragon armored Robin, and Hector sometimes. I gave him the dual rally skill of Rally Def/Res because my entire horse emblem team has Hone Cavalry, meaning that the Def and Res of those units are unaffected. Playing with Rally Skills makes the AI play better on defense, and additionally the Def/Res makes my units more bulky.
I could improve my Ares by merging him more, but I don’t have any more at the moment.
Reinhardt
My Reinhardt went through several phases. For offense, I really enjoyed having the Atk+3 Seal and Luna as his special. He was so broken that he could defeat Hector, Green Dragon Robin, Myrrh, with his special Luna Charged. However, I wasn’t getting many defense wins despite his amazing capabilities. I noticed that most Reinhardts I faced in the arena had the special Moonbow and used the Quickened Pulse seal. I decided to try that out and instantly got two defenses. Not sure if this was a coincidence or not, but at least I got 900 more feathers.
When watching all those videos, they all mentioned that the seal’s SP was also factored into the arena scoring. Therefore, I should choose a seal with a higher SP cost. I went with Heavy Blade, as Reinhardt’s attack was already pretty good, and with Death Blow and Hone Cavalry, his Atk is going up to 59 (or 61 if I have Legendary Ike on my team). Heavy blade has a similar effect as quickened pulse, as long as Reinhardt’s attack was higher than the enemy’s. Reinhardt is really good, and if Cancel Affinity was able to be put on Reinhardt, he would win pretty much every single engagement. His few weaknesses include Cecilia and Titania, but those are rarely seen this high in the Arena.
In the arena, I mostly encounter Armor Emblem teams and Dragon Emblem Teams, I rarely find other Horse Emblem Teams like me. I know that Armored units have a higher BST and therefore a higher Arena rating, but I enjoy playing with the high mobility of Cavalry.
More Reinhardt
Reinhardt has pretty good defensive bulk. Even though he has a speed of 20, he will almost always have the Hone Cavalry buff, meaning his speed is 26. Some Lance Armors run Bold Fighter, and even if they double Reinhardt (Bold Fighter cancels with Lancebreaker, speed check), his bulk is pretty good to survive, especially with the Rally Def/Res and his Ally Support with Brave Lyn. However, most Lance Armors that I face are pretty slow and won’t double Reinhardt (for example, Effie and Hardin. +Spd Hardin can double Reinhardt, but more people use +Atk or +Def Hardins rather than +Spd Hardins)
Dual Rally skill for the arena points. I need to swap that out with Rally Def/Res.
I could improve Reinhardt more by merging him more. However, I need more Reinhardts, as I have run out of them.
Lyn
Lyn is really good. She can damage the armor units I face in the upper levels of the arena without them counterattacking. Then I will typically have Reinhardt or Ares to clean them up. On offense, with Summoner Support, her Speed is 40. With the Hone Cavalry buff and the Swift Sparrow 2 skill, her Speed goes up to 50, which essentially means she can double most armored units without them counterattacking.
I kept Sacae’s Blessing rather than using Wings of Mercy since Sacae’s Blessing has a higher SP cost and prevents counterattacks from units with Distant Counter, which helps, since it’s annoying.
The Distant Def 3 seal is one of the expensive SP skills, so I used it.
I could improve Lyn by merging, but I haven’t been able to summon any Lyns besides the free neutral IV one. I could also improve Lyn by swapping out Hone Cavalry with Atk Smoke back, since the current total SP is 1880, and the SP score is rounded down to the nearest 100 SP, meaning that if I swap out Hone Cavalry (200 SP) to a C-skill that is 240 SP, then the SP rating will go up.
