Arena Battles becoming IMPOSSIBLE to win!!

[angryde]

@jadedbacon I predict that your prediction will turn out to be unnervingly accurate… Lol. Tough battles, lots of McCool refreshing… but dead boards. Kinda like cutting off your nose to spite your face, Rovio! Edit: Typos.

[Loginska Troika]

i’m having troubles with this one: “win the battle and knock out 3 birds while they’re attacking your banner”. What does it mean exactly?
Lemme tell you what i DID do tho:

1. i let them all alive but the banner broke before their turn to attack, cause i used the “cupcake trap” with the rogues.
2. i let a just one or two alive but the banner broke before their turn to attack, cause i used the “cupcake trap” with the rogues.

What i didn’t try is this:
Knock them all out, use cupcake trap on banner, let it break just before their turn, although they will have to wait one more turn to attack. That is: all of them knocked out at their turn with the broken banner. But that requires a lot of patience, weak enemies… is that the way to do it?, why does it have to be so hard?, i don’t even get the “kill all birds with one attack” which is way easier to pull out. AND there’s people who complains about the game not giving points, i mean the board not marking it as a point.

[Dahnlor]

@loginska-troika All it means is to knock out any opposing birds as a result of their attacking your banner. Using Cupcake Trap on your banner is good for this since it both forces them to attack the banner and damages them for doing so. Using Chuck’s Mage or Thunderbird abilities also help to add more damage, as would adding the Spiky Spike or Thorn Wall emblems.

I usually take Mage, Rogues and Princess when I have this objective, and use the Spiky Spike plus either the Blessed set or whatever else I have to get the most hit points and defense on my banner. Use Rogues and Mage to keep damage reflection maxed on the banner, Princess also helps Rogues in keeping the banner as the enemies’ target as well as healing it.

Keep in mind it doesn’t matter when the knockouts happen, or how many happen in each battle. You can knock just one bird out and then win the fight a few rounds later and you’ll get credit for that one knockout, and you can get the rest in subsequent battles, so there’s no need to put yourself in a bad position to try to get all 3 of them knocked out in the same battle.

[Chulimanga]

For me it is impossible to “Knock out Matilda 5 times with The Blues” because the AI is simply not using Matilda at all. Anyone has the same problem?

[Suzy]

@chulimanga I was having the same problem so had to do some unranked battles against Piggy McCool. After about 6 of these battles Matilda finally showed up. The blues only managed to knock her out 3 times in the first battle but fortunately Matilda was in the next battle and I got the last two Ko’s.

[MVNLA2]

@loginska-troika — There are older forums that have a lot of useful strategies for many of the objectives. You may have to look past page 1 to find them.

[Loginska Troika]

First off: thanks for responding me, i tho the thread was kinda dead.
Second and last: i did that two, i defeated them all and ended up with the cupcake trap. I also did the “imposible” one: i defeated them, used the cupcake trap, but the banner broke with all them dead. The problem is that the game wasn’t counting… i gave up at that point, i nailed today’s goals few hours ago… guess i’m gonna have to play the game knowing that sometimes it won’t count at the end. What’s funny is that same thing happened to people and this thing also happened to me before at the same day: wednesday.
Anyways, thanks for the advices, take care.

[Loginska Troika]

Nevermind dude, the game wasn’t counting… again… at wednesday… again. Yeah, the game was not counting my points. Happened to me 2 weeks ago, also read some post complaining about the same issue: the game’s not counting. Next time gonna make sure to try what people told me to do (even tho i did). Cause that’s a poor excuse to send a ticket to support, i know. Thanks for responding me, cheers.

[Ryogo Kusama]

Nevermind dude, the game wasn’t counting… again… at wednesday… again. Yeah, the game was not counting my points. Happened to me 2 weeks ago, also read some post complaining about the same issue: the game’s not counting. Next time gonna make sure to try what people told me to do (even tho i did). Cause that’s a poor excuse to send a ticket to support, i know. Thanks for responding me, cheers.

@loginska-troika
Dude, do you know you have to win the battle for them to count for the objective, right?

Reading your last post I might suspect you were killing them off with cupcake trap and then losing the same match… it doesn’t work like this.
For EVERY Arena Daily Objective to be registered you actually have to win the same match in which you scored the goal to get the objective done, else it’s pointless work.

Also, there is no need to kill 3 birds at once or in the same match even, you can kill just one bird with any bird reflective spell and then another one in the next match and so on… but for it to count you have to win those matches, it’s like this for every objective and it has always been like this since the beginning, it’s no bug.

And as a final note, you just need to deliver the FINAL BLOW with reflective damage, before that you can weaken them with any other kind of bird/spell until they’re ready to suicide with one hit. The same thing goes for similar objectives like “kill 3 birds at once”: you hurt them till they’re on low health and then you use any AoE spell to kill them all at once (with Bomb’s explosion probably being the best for this job).

Read carefully what the objectives are, and if you think you don’t understand, seek help on the forums before calling them bugs or sending a ticket to Rovio, please… their support team is slow already and if they have to deal with fake bugs, they become even slower in dealing with real issues.

[GrauGeist]

“Win the battle and knock out 3 birds while they’re attacking your banner.” is actually one of the easier objectives as you can spread it out over multiple fights. It’s not like “KO 3 birds at once”…

Take the Spikes emblem, and load the banner with Cupcake Trap & Archmage, and just whittle the enemy bird health down with your attacks. When they attack they’ll take KO themselves.

Then you just have to WIN THE BATTLE. :D

[Zander]

When you’re facing opponents that clearly outmatch you by 200 points, it’s just the AI feeding you to those opponents. There is no larger reward for squeaking out with one-star against someone pushing 1200 power, with a name like “BeatMeIfYouCan”. I understand maintaining competition and whatnot, but this is the reason why I stopped Arena playing the first time. Because if every opponent that I face is going to have me outmatched by hundreds of points and I have tasks that require me to win, I’m going to lose interest.

I’ve probably restarted the game 10 times this morning, and the closest match-up had 150 power points on me, others being 200-250. And it’s not as if I am a low-level. My main classes are 10, and the lowest is 7, and I’m level 50.

Also, I’ve noticed that Shroud and Time Jump are incredibly broken in Arena. I knocked out enemy birds all at once, so had 3 turns to attack the banner, and shroud, despite stating only 15% chance, blocked 8 out of 9 attacks against it. Same goes for Time Jump. Every turn, I was hit with 4-5 attacks.

[dillo]

I mentioned this in another thread (AI Triggers) that there is an unnerving number of triggers that go against you in the Arena. I actually took the time to document the results:

1) Resurrection – supposed to happen 30% of the time, happens about 33% of the time (9/27 matches had resurrections). Pretty accurate, thought it was going to be 50%.

2) Time Jump – supposed to happen 10% of the time, happened 11/25 times (close to 50%). This one vexes me to no end.

3) Shroud – rarely encounter this one, seems to trigger as per advertised (2/8).

I’ve also noticed a few players getting Chili time earlier than they ought – no banner to boost it, no abilities or sets to boost it, had used Chili time just 4 moves earlier. This may be more observer bias though (get too involved in the match to calculate Chili build-ups).

[Jamairoqui]

@Zander I’ve noticed that Time Jump seems to activate more often than you might expect. It also seems like Resurrection is far more effective for your opponents than it is for your own team. Everyone has experienced a battle where every time you knock out a bird it resurrects. But then I also know I’ve been in battles where the opponent birds never resurrect once. My hunch is the odds are stacked slightly against you, but it’s not too skewed. The difference is that the enemy birds don’t care if they lose, so they are unaffected by the battles where their skill never gets used.

You are correct that you rarely (like maybe 1 battle out of 100) see teams that have power rankings that are lower than yours. But the happy thing is that if you play enough you begin to recognize when the power ranking is irrelevant. I regularly beat teams with power levels in the 1400’s and 1500’s with my 1250 rank team (Venom team), but the teams I beat are not Valiant set. So I reset my opponents a lot and try to watch for the 1500-level non-Valiant teams that are *really* dangerous (e.g., Blazing Eye, Resurrection or Time Jump, with fully enchanted birds so that the health of Reds is over 6000 so he’s like a second banner).

What annoys me is that I seem to constantly cycle through the same set of opponents. There are supposedly millions of ABE players over the world. Yet I see the same people over and over and over (TokyoNASCAR, ChangNoCheatJustDoIt etc.). I’ve gotten to know which of those are beatable, even if I lose the coin toss, and which are risky. It would be nice if the game algorithm mixed things up a bit. And I also don’t believe that 90% of the people playing have Valiant set. If they did, the Arena scores would all be in the hundreds of thousands. So why are 90% of the teams I face equipped with the Valiant set?

Arena is really frustrating, especially now with all the Valiant sets running around. They are essentially unbeatable on a consistent basis. Fooling around sometimes at the end of a day when I have lives to spare, I’ve tried going after them with different combinations of birds. The best I’ve found is a pure power team with Samurai with Dragon, Wizard with Feather, and then Spies with Artillery and the Might Head set for the banner with Time Jump (if you have the Golden Chili). If you get to move first, you can take out all the birds by feeding Chuck the chili as your first move. If you get lucky, you might get critical hits out of Spies, maybe one out of Chuck, and one out of Reds and maybe an extra turn with one of your birds. Then you have one free cycle with all three of your birds to mash the banner (and mnaybe get another extra turn). Hopefully when the opponent revives at the next turn, they don’t kill Chuck so you can feed him the second rage chili, which knocks them out all over again. At this point you better hope Spies does some serious damage to the banner because when they revive a second time you’re dead and they roll you up.

The problem with that strategy is it’s based on luck, so if you only have three lives it’s not really going to get you far. But the game does say outright “you need a little bit of luck” to win. (I do know my traditional Venom team is pathetically useless against Valiant.)

[Bubbley]

@jamairoqui I am not having difficulty winning against the Valiant set. My birds are 50/12 and I have fully enchanted the weapons I use and my Blazing Eye. Yes the battles take time but the up side is that many are 3 starred.

I use 2 different line ups unless objectives dictate otherwise. Captain with Scissors,his dispel is valuable. Witch with Yin Yang, for the rage enhancement. Either Wizard with the Mana set or Paladin with Dragon Breath.

The combination of the banner and Yin Yang mean rage is generated very quickly. I think this is why I can win. From reading one of your other posts it seems you have all the same equipment. Why not give it a try.

I agree the Time Jump is heavily weighted in the opponents favour. I stopped using it long ago and now I avoid it before completing objectives and after if I need the points.

The disadvantage of not owning Valiant is that I have to spend more time playing than I did before it arrived. I was planning to spend a few coins on the AGPM today but after reading your post in the bug thread I have decide against it. Perhaps it’s not available because Rovio intend some modification. I live in hope!

Edit: forgot to mention I use the Rage Sheild emblem.

[Jamairoqui]

@bubbley I tried your arrangement. It was not a huge success at 1-2 (the win was 1-star against a relatively weaker, non-Valiant team I would have crushed with Venom). The two losses were both against Valiant set teams. One was close, because the opponent had Druid and Rogues, and might have gone better if the Mana set on Chuck had protected me from either (which seems to be a common theme, that the protections and so forth work better for opponents than for your own team).

The key is that it might require a fully enchanted set of weapons, off-hand items, and banner sets. That is a huge commitment of shards, and at this point I’m not willing to spend more LCs. This week is the end of a season, so there’s no real reason to work very hard. Next week we will all be in Wood anyway.

[Pointless]

@bubbley I am a Valiant user (quite luckily after reading this thread and the Bug one), and after many, many battles, I know what opposition poses difficulty for me, and by extension Valiant teams (at least in the more common team configurations). I think you are slightly off the mark in your belief that rage generation is the key with your team, although what a nice benefit, I remember using the Blazing Set long before Valiant existed and loved the fact that you seemed to get a full chili every other turn. You do actually state two components of your team/banner that I know causes me slight problems (I have not faced you with your new setup, though). I obviously hesitate to say exactly what those are here in this forum, but will say that an important part is, as @jamairoqui supposes, full enchantments to at least enter a battle on somewhat level terms. Yes, this, unfortunately does require Shard investment, but as Arena stands, this is a must at 52/12 to “play with the big boys”

[Bubbley]

@pointless yes I mean 52/12. I am level 50 which is the max but at that level set items show value 52. Of course my line up is important and the way I use them.

I invested in shards which are a certainty rather than spending LC trying for Valiant set. I have no regrets and actually I am rather enjoying thrashing the computer.

When you played with the Blessed set I didn’t hesitate to face you now with your set up, which includes time jump I assume, I would pause for thought. The computer wouldn’t play as you do though so I might have the edge!

[Bubbley]

@jamairoqui unfortunately it is necessary to have fully enchanted kit. I chose to invest in Shards rather than try for Valiant at the first opportunity. Fortunately your post allowed me to save the LC I have received this month so thanks for that. If I keep hoarding I may be able to splurge when the Arena GPM is fixed!

[Pointless]

@bubbley yes, I still use Time Jump (although have been thinking of changing, as enchanting emblems is cheap, just not sure to what with my lineup). And so everyone knows, TJ certainly does NOT proc at a ~50%, I have tracked numbers and it is very close to the 10% advertised. I am thinking people just remember the bad luck and are making incorrect suppositions. I have had battles vs TJ where the opposition gets three procs in a row, yes, but these are really extremely rare. I have also had equally rare battles where I get three procs in a row, and these are extremely fun :)

Also, you do put forth an important point…the AI doesn’t play as we do (there are threads filled with these laughable moves), so use this to one’s advantage. With the right team and set up, a human player should have the edge in most battles (yes, this does still include Shard Enchantment, sorry to all who won’t/can’t)

[Pointless]

And of course in my first arena battle after posting that I had all three of my birds get a TJ proc in the first turn…

[Bubbley]

@pointless I think you probably do get the time jumps as advertised over time. I used the emblem for a long time but I found the opponent received many more than I did. Things have been modified since then of course. However at the moment I prefer not to play a power team equipped with the emblem.

[GrauGeist]

@zander – TBH, it’s not the guys at 1200 that are scary; I’m 1300+ and can crush them with my 50/12 birds no problem. It’s the guys that are 1500+; even ignoring Valiant, they’ve got a 6k Red, 5k Bomb and a 25k+ banner. Those MAX set guys are just brutal, even with the AI being dumb, because you need to do so much damage, it’s hopeless without max gear of your own. If you’re F2P, that’s a really high hurdle to cross, simply for the shards needed to upgrade the 3 Weapon Sets to max, to say nothing of the Banner Set op top of it.

WRT Shroud & TJ, I run TJ, myself, and I see TJ a lot; it doesn’t proc that often, thankfully. *knock* I think you had a *very* unlucky run there. That isn’t to say it’s not hugely unbalancing when it procs multiple time – I count on it for some easy wins! It’s just that it does kinda balance against fights when there are NO TJ procs, and you just need to grind them down…

I wonder if you’re light on firepower, with non-upgraded equipment against opponents that have better-upgraded gear than you. If you have some good set pieces, it’s not a bad idea to start upgrading the weapons, at least.

@dillo – I agree TJ seems to proc more than 10%. Not sure what the calc is based on.

@jamairoqui – I find that those monster Reds aren’t the problem – I can usually ignore them with a power team, and just go for the Banner. It’s the TJ power teams that are bad news, because they can just flatten you in 1 turn, and that can end the fight if you’re not running Valiant.

[GrauGeist]

I agree with @pointless – it’s a good use of LCs to buy shards to upgrade stuff. If you’re upgrading *good* gear (e.g. Mana set), you’ll get permanent benefit from it.

[dillo]

I’ve found a particularly evil way to win against the Valiant teams using significant offensive defense. Since my strategy is patent-pending (hah hah) I’ll share only this much – thorn shield has forced them to KO themselves 10 times since I maxed it out. Yes I realize that this alone won’t generally kill them but my offensive defense has ways around that…(evil snicker, evil snicker, evil snicker).

Wait, did I evil snicker out loud? I did? Oh, well then, good I guess (evil snicker, evil snicker, evil snicker).

[Pointless]

@dillo your strategy seems evident, and sounds significantly like the one I use (more or less) for the KO birds attacking the banner objective. Not that effective against Mana, though, is it? Do you simply McCool past these teams?