Arena Season 5

[Suzy]

@angryjohnny thank you

[Pointless]

@killerkea thank you for the suggestions, always appreciated. Counter teams can be incredibly fun, but what I am really trying for is a team that can be used regularly without McCool resets and the Mana set is therefore problematic. I guess I am unlucky, or you are lucky not to have:) to have run into Valiant teams in streaks (which seriously happens to me everyday), many using Mana.
Thanks to @poptimus I have discovered the true value if Witch in the arena. I’m currently using Pal (DB), Wiz (Re) and Witch (Sw) with Blessed (TJ) which has given me a good success rate. I am able to consistently 3 star with this except when losing the toss and facing an unlucky TJ proc. These battles also tend to be long and crazy, which hurts the points per minute, but often leave me shaking my head at the carnage inflicted…often finish with 60K when all the feathers have cleared.
A work in progress…

[Jim151]

People have posted that a way to get into an easier league is to not click on “finished” until the first day of the new week is almost over. IOW, not on Sunday afternoon, but late Monday morning. Well, I’ve tried that twice now and it aint working. I didn’t start this week until about an hot ago, and I’ve got 3 guys with over 8,000 points in the first three slots. Platinum league. It’s not that I have trouble winning battles, I don’t (but 3 stars is getting harder to come by), but I don’t want to play several hours each day just to keep up.

[Angry Johnny]

@jim151 It doesn’t work anymore because a lot of people are doing that now.
You get put with people that starts playing arena in about the same time as you do OR if there is a still some other place available with another group of players you get put into that one.

[angryde]

@jim151, @angryjohnny is correct. As a long time proponent of the strategy you’ve mentioned… I can confirm that it’s becoming less and less effective. Two weeks ago… I couldn’t advance from platinum to diamond; and last week… I was demoted from platinum to gold. Urgh.

[GrauGeist]

Gotta say, the KO 3 birds with 1 attack 2 times is almost impossible with the big enchants to bump bird health. OMG.

[KillerKea]

@pointless Last night I got the Valiant set which is also called the Pig Squire set. The Blessed set was clearly the best set in the past so they nerfed it a little. The Valiant set makes everything a lot easier than the Blessed set ever did. I can take on opponents 200 points stronger than me and win without too much difficulty unless they are using the same set. The items I use are all rank 1-3 with almost all of them at rank 2. I played about 25 battles with it and the only time I lost was when I fought someone who was 269 points higher than me, got the first attack and had the Pig Squire set with the resurrection emblem. Before I had the Valiant set I’d always avoid opponents 150+ points above me and if I had losses before completing my objectives my threshold was much lower, but this set is so strong I wanted to see how powerful of an opponent it would take to beat me.

I’m at the Diamond level now and I am getting more opponents that use the Pig Squire set, but I’m also getting a lot of opponents that use the Bird Bond set which uses the Linking Heart and Linking Threads. Of course more opponents prefer to use the Pig Squire set, but I’m not getting an overwhelming majority. The Pig Squire set kind of takes the fun and challenge out of the arena because it is so easy to win with it that you don’t need to think much unless your opponent also has it.

[WhiteAsIce]

@killerkea The Pig Squire banner set is OP, we can all agree on that. However, it’s just too meta right now. Every opponent I fought since Friday had the set. That’s over 20+ fights in a row that an opponent had the banner set.

If I’m not using Pig Squire and the opponent is, even if I win the coin toss and I have over 1500 attack power, I usually lose. At this point, there’s absolutely no reason to use any other banner set unless you need to fulfill some weird daily objective.

[Pointless]

@whiteasice I was beginning to think I was extremely unlucky to have been encountering these insane streaks of opponents with Valiant Set (or Pig Squire, do these sets actually have true names?), so I must admit to some schadenfreude.

We all seem to be on the same page about how OP this set is, which really makes me hesitate to spend LCs on acquiring it, as a nerf seems imminent. Really can’t decide…
Does having the Valiant Set make defeating opponents with the set significantly easier?

I am having success using Blessed with a Power Team equipped with Chain attack items, as I can concentrate mainly on the banner yet still KO the enemy with regularity. Granted, my team is 1500+ (but so are most of my Diamond opponents), but if I win the toss I am usually able to 3 star, barring any bad luck. Things get hairier if I lose, and while wins are still probable, 3 stars are out due to the sustained banner damage from having opponents up almost every turn. This is why I am experimenting with Witch (now Mastery 11 at least), but cannot decide if this is truly worth it. Even though 3 star is (almost) guaranteed, these battles take a lot more time, hence the points/minute drops, and with finite playing time, this hurts. Think it’s more worthwhile winning with Power in 2-3 turns if I win the toss and simply accepting the 1-2 stars if I lose it.

[Atom]

I think the “points per minute” thing only applies to regular levels in the game. I’ve watched my score at the end of every arena battle for the past couple months and there is a very regular algorithm for calculating points (and stars). Your score is based on the possible 30,000 points from your banner’s health and the 15,000 points you get for knocking out the enemy’s banner. Add to this the 2,000 points you get from knocking out an enemy bird and you can calculate your final score. I’ve had games that drag on quite a while and even near the end you still get 2,000 point per bird that you knock out.

As for stars, the cut off for 3 stars is 45,000. I think the cut off for 2 stars is 30,000 and below that is 1 star.

[Pointless]

@atom I am referring to the medals awarded per battle. If an arena battle takes 5 minutes and you 3-star, is it more or less beneficial than a battle that takes 3 minutes but only 2-starred if you have let’s say 60 minutes of arena playing time per day.

[Atom]

@pointless That makes sense

[Bubbley]

I do not believe the rarity of my opponents using something other than the Valiant set is by chance. Having said that my chosen team has a power of 1552. I substitute Witch if the opponent carries Retaliate or Thorns when my power drops to 1427 or 1440. Objectives can put it as low as 1334.

I pass a power team using Valiant and TJ until completing objectives and if I need the points to help progression.

I am still managing to win much more often than lose so. I see no point wasting LC to try for a Valiant set which I might not achieve. I think enchanting other set items is a better use of my resources.

The set is clearly over powered. Rovio has a track record of addressing this problem therefore in my opinion even if you think you only recourse is to obtain a set yourself, wait.

[Suzy]

Just tried to get in the arena but a message came up saying it locked try again later. Does this happen very often?

[Jadedbacon]

So far Valiant and TJ (maybe Rez?) have been the problems for me.

Valiant + Vengeful can also be problematic if the enemy team also has a Chuck with TLightning. If he gets back up by himself and he uses his Rage ability after you’ve knocked everyone else out? Good night!

However, I’ve mostly been using the same strategy as what’s been posted here in regards to Valiant: Ignore the birds and go for the banner. Use stuff like Paladin/Spies/Hocus Pocus to keep your birds somewhat healthy while still maintaining pressure. If Mana set isn’t in play, use Rogue/Avenger + Witch for a slower yet guaranteed win. Knock out the enemy Chuck on turn 2-3 to prevent him from using the Rage ability (usually the enemy Red/Blues/Bomb will use it instead).

Thankfully this week is rather slow; last week was extremely competitive, was able to stick to 10th place with a decent amount of grinding. This week I’m coasting at 1st with no grinding other than objectives.

[KillerKea]

Every set has a name. However the name of the arena Blessed set is “Sweet” and Matilda’s honey pot and honey spoon set is called “Sweet!” so people can easily get confused. Too add to the confusion I’ve seen some people here mistakenly call Bomb’s Sugar Rush set Sweet because his set looks like candy.

[KillerKea]

My attack power is just under 1200 and as long as my opponent doesn’t have the Pig Squire set I can beat players 300 points above me. If I loss the coin toss when fighting people that much stronger than me, my Wizard is always knocked out despite using the Reborn set. However there is a bug in the game that overwhelmingly favors the Pig Squire set because my birds revive in round 2 if they get knocked out in round 1 instead of 2 rounds later. If you get knocked out later, they revive after 2 rounds instead of 1. Because of this bug when I fight a very powerful team, when Chuck revives my other two birds are knocked out so my Wizard gets 3 attacks by using the chili which usually knocks out all the enemy birds and things aren’t too hard after that.

[GrauGeist]

@killerkea – congrats on getting Valiant. I’m going to be hoping for that in the next 5x, along with completing Mana.

[Jadedbacon]

@killerkea I always call the sets based off of what the top/flag are named, not after what the set bonus is called exactly because of the double “Sweet” thing (also there’s a flag that has the ability “Sweet”)

Going for Valiant myself; that + vengeful sounds fun.

[Pointless]

@killerkea are you serious? An already OP set is glitched to become massively so by reviving in ONE turn? Wow…haven’t noticed that in opponents, but don’t have the set myself. Nerf has to be imminent methinks (or at least a fix)

@jadedbacon I have hesitated to mention that here (for obvious reasons), but I have noticed it becoming more prominent in opponents, so it seems to have been figured out: Valiant + Vengeful is deadly, pure and simple. Often results in my entire team being KO’d due to the consistent damage dealt, and having my birds down for three turns as the enemy’s full team revives is almost surely a defeat. Hitting the banner only doesn’t really help as it obviously leaves the enemy in the same position of having a full team when Chuck inevitably gets fed the chili

[Jadedbacon]

@pointless It’s a shame really. This new set looks like it was added to shake up the Metagame somewhat, instead it just broke the whole thing. The other two sets are flashier looking and seem to be slightly stronger if at least promoting some different styles of play, but the Valiant set just blows them and everything else out of the water in terms of efficiency/power. Power curve tweaking is one thing, this feels more like a quick cash grab :(

(Although, sidenote: I noticed the Linked set, can’t remember the name, provides a bigger damage reduction than advertised. I attacked an enemy Chuck with my Paladin (1600some damage) and it only hit for 550 and the banner took 550. Whether that’s intended and the tooltip is wrong or if it’s a glitch I’m not sure)

[Atom]

@jadedbacon The banner for the linked set reduces damage taken by the birds by 20%. If they also had another set like Red’s Steel Force that could explain the damage reduction.

[Pointless]

@jadedbacon I do not have any of the three new sets and have honestly faced the less used two very few times (less than five each) that I haven’t paid close enough attention to the values of the bonuses to agree or disagree. I will when I meet an opponent with them equipped again. I do remember Angry being rather easily controlled, as you just ensure the enemy birds never get below 25% unless ensuring the KO.

[BINH]

I just got the valiant set yesterday; along with the chili now i am too OP. I don’t even use enchant shards

[Anonymous]

@jadedbacon About the Linked set, this is not a glitch. The Linking Robes (Whatever the name is) has the Vigor ability. So it makes sense that damage is reduced.