Arena Season 6

[Bubbley]

@graugeist @pointless @napoleongl @partshade I thought I may as well add my two pence worth. I think the pistols and finisher not useful but I see loads of them especially finisher. Banner breaker can be formidable in the hands of a Samurai but I don’t fear it. The hammers are useful if you can’t knock out any birds or want a more defined approach at the banner as for example if playing vengeance. The sonic set is a damnded nuisance, I don’t have one but would still use mana if I did.

I have now become so used to playing valiant that I forget I can knock out birds supported by other banners. I can’t say it’s boring because each battle is a challenge.

@dillo you are dead right. I played you yesterday. If valiant is boring for you why not swap it for blazing eye.

So far wood league is as expected. Half playing in earnest half doing nothing. Here we go again. Must be mad.

[dillo]

@bubbley If I save up enough Shards I just might swap them out (have +5 to both Blazing Eyes but +10 to Valiant and +8 to Blessed). Btw did the AI win when you played me? I have to admit I don’t often hear from those I’ve reportedly played against.

[Bubbley]

@dillo no I won. I’m sure things would have been different if you were playing.

[Pointless]

That is the key to all of this anti-Valiant/Arena strategy. Granted, you need to have birds that are comparable (ie with Sets Enchanted to some extent), but the AI is a crippling handicap in most battles. There have been many posts about AI stupidity (Beserker suicide is still my favourite) and we have to remember that and use it for our advantage. The AI will act in a very predictable manner, and once you have enough experience in Arena, you know with a high degree of certainty what moves with what Class will be made on the enemy’s turn, to the point where you can use it to great advantage (Rogues/Cupcake right before Enemy Wizard is due to get the Chili to name just one example).
I am sure my Team is very beatable when controlled by the AI, just as I (generally) don’t have problems beating others when I play, even the many 1600+ ones out there.

[Anonymous]

@graugeist
I don’t follow about cupcake trap before enemy chuck getting the chili. Since chuck’s rage attack sends all birds at random targets, isn’t the cupcake trap’s forced attack aspect nullified? I use rogues all the time, and use cupcake trap every other turn in most cases, and I’m always disappointed when chuck subsequently gets the chili.

[GrauGeist]

@poptimus – I think you were referring to @pointless, right? :D

Anyhow, the use of Cupcake trap is to potentially self-KO Chuck and/or other enemy birds on when they activate Chili, similar to the KO birds when they attack your banner. For Valiant, since they KO themselves on their turn, they are out longer than if you KO them on your turn.

[Pointless]

Thanks @graugeist
Exactly that, force attack is not the point, rather using an enemy’s attack against them, specifically AoE ones. I have had an enemy Chuck revive to be fed the Chili with Cupcake active on all my birds and the banner thanks to a couple of fortunate TJ procs over a couple of turns. Not pretty from their perspective…

[JJAtelier]

What an interesting point. The same mechanic applies to the Princess’ Royal Mail force attack. Even though your birds are taunted to attack a specific target, using the chilli with Chuck kinda negates that since the random targeting takes priority.

[BINH]

Just bring the most powerful team; i’ve never lost since i got the valliant set; my team isn’t even 1200 pts but i have the chili; easily destroy +1400 pt teams with valliant set

[Pointless]

The random attack does not take priorty if your birds are already under a forced attack situation. The scenario above is based on an enemy’s bird or birds reviving and therefore not under any detrimental effect. If they are when a Chuck Chili is imminent, then all the better.

[Bubbley]

Well as @pointless has said its about knowing the moves the enemy will make. Funnily enough I played @pointless and @dillo in succession yesterday. Yes I won both matches in spite of 4 TJ by @pointless team.

[Anonymous]

@graugeist
Yes, meant to reply to @pointless the other day, my bad.

@pointless
I just tested to make sure I’m not crazy. I’m not. Rogues cupcake trap cast against enemy with illusionist, to target my banner. Illusionist was only enemy bird standing when he got the chili, and attacked random targets. My tbird received the illusionist attack side effect, so it’s not like i could have just seen it incorrectly due to chuck moving too fast or whatever.

[Pointless]

@bubbley if only I got 4 TJ procs when I played…

@poptimus just to confirm, the enemy Illusionist was under the forced attack at the time? I will admit Chuck seems to be the wild card here, but if all three of my birds are alive and under a Royal Mail for example, I will see the Banner targeted (as it should be) when I give Chuck the Chili. Almost always as far as I can recall. I will definitely watch this (although Princess and Avenger are rare, Rogues less so)

[Anonymous]

@pointless
It sounds like you’re talking now about your own birds being under a forced attack spell, and you’re giving your own chuck your own chili, whereas I was talking about an enemy chuck being under my rogues’ cupcake trap forced attack spell. Still, both scenarios should allow the raging chuck (and his allies) to attack random targets despite being under the forced attack spell.
Now, in the scenario you described the other day (where all three of your birds, AND your banner have the cupcake trap thorns on them), of course the forced attack aspect of the cupcake trap doesn’t matter; any attacked target will also hit the enemy attacker back, and multi-bird attacks (like those wielded by most of chuck’s classes, spies, and berserker) are almost guaranteed suicide. That’s why I love using thunderbird against such enemies.
But the point I was trying to make is that, under normal circumstances with cupcake trap, you’ve only cast it on one ally at a time, so the forced attack aspect is important, and a raging chuck causing all enemy birds to attack random targets does indeed negate it.
ETA: Similarly, a raging red will still attack the highest health ally, regardless of which target he’s supposed to be forced to attack.

[Pointless]

@poptimus let’s back this up to the spirit of the specific scenario of my original post, in which I was describing an example of using enemy AI to one’s advantage.
The example of Rogues/Cupcake comes from my limited use of this class in Arena, pretty much only for the KO birds attacking your banner objective. I know with high certainty when an enemy Chuck will be fed the Chili, and will in fact force this to happen in the manner I find most advantageous by KOing Chuck early and other birds in the turn before a Chili is imminent so that Chuck (typically Wizard) revives alone (or nearly) to this. Cupcake on my banner and the AoE from enemy Chuck will almost always result in a self-KO and thus a completed objective result. I play Valiant, so I don’t care if my birds are KOd necessaily as they will be up again in no time.
Similalrly, in your Red example, you can enforce the same result by knowing when he’s about to Rage, and Cupcake the Banner (almost always the highest health) and target him with other attacks to weaken him enough that said Rage will self KO. All part of using the predictable AI to get what you want.

[Anonymous]

@pointless
Fair enough! Can’t argue with any of that! So, umm, how DO you know when your opponent is about to rage? Asking for a friend…

[Anonymous]

Oh, and by the way, has anyone noticed that this week of wood league is scheduled to end 14 hours earlier than usual?!

[Pointless]

@poptimus I just noticed that with Arena. Wonder why?

And just had a battle vs Princess and here were the results. Twice had my Chuck revive to the Chili with only Red up and under Royal Order effect, once forced on the Banner and once forced to the enemy Red. Both times my Red targeted the enemy he was forced to in both of his Rage attacks, so I still believe I am correct.

[Anonymous]

@pointless
Yeah, and the last daily rewards of the week just came up, and are still showing the full 24 hours, while the league clock is counting down from only 10 hours. Very weird.

As for the random/forced thing, your recent examples don’t prove your case though. Those could still be “randomly”/coincidentally happen to be attacking the target they were “forced” to attack. On the other hand, my example with the enemy illusionist does prove my argument, no?

[Pointless]

@poptimus as I said, Chuck seems to be the wild card. Part of this is due to the sheer chaos accompanying a Chuck Rage, as with all the AoE going on, it’s really hard to tell what is being targeted (unless you have tell-tale signs like your Illusionist example).
My recent experience with Princess seems to confirm what I have previously noted, so I don’t think it’s necessarily random coincidence. I will obviously watch and report further, as I’m sure you (and others hopefully?) will as well.

[Pointless]

And I am not purposely avoiding your question about predicting an enemy’s Rage. It had not even crossed my mind before now that this is perhaps a great advantage that some of us have in Arena. Not sure it’s a secret worth keeping under wraps, as Arena has devolved into who has the most time to grind, but let me think on this some more before posting in an open forum. I would share my deductions with you, as a friend, as I have enjoyed our many discussions…

[Dallasreds]

I had something weird happen yesterday that I have never seen. Near the end of the match I was winning. When the enemy’s turn was over all of my birds got marked to attack Bomb and the opponent did not have bomb on their team? I moved to attack and it was like every bird was not bomb because they weren’t! It put the slash mark on every bird when I scrolled over them so I launched on them anyway. I won with that attack. Anyone seen this before? This was humorous bug.

[GrauGeist]

In my experience, Rage attack targeting (i.e. Chuck random, Red highest, Blues random) takes priority over anything else (e.g. Princess, Cupcake Trap).

[Bubbley]

@pointless yes don’t you wish. It’s why I stopped using TJ – the enemy always had many more.

BTW you would never in a million years have played so badly!

[Pointless]

I agree with that regarding Red and Blues, this I have noted as well. I think the key here is that Chuck is the one being fed the Chili, and perhaps the randomness of his Rage is restricted to him alone?
I have noticed that force attack on other birds seems to be the case, but haven’t really been tracking closely enough to be 100% sure. My recent battle vs Princess went as predicted, but in no means proves anything.