Arena Season 9

[KennyMcC]

Happy New Year without any rigged randomness and full of epic achievements :) Welcome to the next level, I mean level 2017 :)

[angryde]

My God… I think I might actually be promoted to platinum this week. Do I dare dream of diamond – at this late hour!? XD

[Suzy]

@angryde

Fingers crossed that you do ?

[KennyMcC]

@toolow
I see that Gil wants to overcome you, if u want to race him.

[DD]

@kennymcc
Turns out my hunch is right in that Gil managed to pull ~7k towards the end likely, as you said, by completing the objectives late. Although I was expecting Gunar and another one or two to put up a fight. Between spending time with family and the events, add to the fact that my birds are getting relatively weaker, I’m just glad to hang on to 2nd. Could have spent the afternoon grinding more but I’ll only get a few more Snoutings.

On the other hand, I finished the event on top and rolled 1.5k all-red-bomb on first try. A shame I ended up using over 10 FEs to boost the score, and I re-spun the arena wheel twice to get the shards. Still, that’s got to be better than my luck with 5xRR. The Resurrection Mythic Emblem is certainly mythical to me.

[Pointless]

@angryde hopefully you do! I made it to Diamond this week after a very lackluster effort throughout the Season (only played this week for the Shard awards), but managed to hold on. And now we have a bonus 5x…hmm, it’s like the game is begging me to throw some LCs at the AGPM :)

[DD]

@pointless Hope you have much better luck with 5xRR than @kennymcc and I.

[Pointless]

@toolow thank you, but not so far…dropped only 100 and did get a few L72 tops, but not the L72 Valiant Tapestry I still crave, and certainly no Mythics (in fact no Emblems at all that were 3-Star).
So it begs the question, where are all these opponents I regularly face in Arena getting their Mythics?

[DD]

@pointless I actually got Mythic Weakened Healing and Mythic Rage Shield earlier, so they are obtainable. But with the New Year 5xRR, I just couldn’t get Mythic Resurrection or Mythic ‘anything’. Got a few L72 set items, most of them duplicates and only 1 that I wanted, and very few 3-star items. In all, I dropped 360 LCs, 150 for the banners; should have stopped earlier :(

So it is really down to luck with RNG which the general public sadly do not or find it hard to understand.

[Pointless]

Dropped 250 LCs on the AGPM (or GAPM, I think, anyways the ARENA one), and no Mythics whatsoever. In fact, the only 3-Star Emblem I got in those 60 rolls was a rather useless Rage Shield…
Did get my L72 Valiant Tapestry, however :)

[KennyMcC]

@toolow
Congrats :) I made 1.5 all-red-bomb once on first free roll in past too, but this time I had to make 2 extra rerolls (20 FE down) for 1,5k all-chuck-stamina. I got Shards on first free roll in Arena, at least that :)

I would say that maybe Mythic Retaliation is best or at least very powerful, what do u say? I did some battles vs this Emblem and it was really annoying.

Still 0 Mythic Emblems here :)

[Pointless]

@kennymcc I agree…Mythic Retaliation (oops, I mean Thorn Wall…sorry @datguygamer :P) is very annoying to play against. Very, very annoying when the opposition also had Ancient Might to boot. Pretty easy KO three in a single attack setup right there.

[DD]

@pointless
Well, I wouldn’t say Rage Shield is useless as it had saved my bacon more times than I can count. Congratulation on receiving L72 Valiant Tapestry, it’s definitely a must have for me.

@kennymcc
Thanks and congratulation to you too.

Not sure if Mythic Thorn Wall is the best but it is definitely powerful and annoying for me when it’s in the hands of the opponents as @pointless says. Especially since my team usually has limited or no healing, and resurrection has a tendency to fail at the wrong moment. Many times I have to consider attack, which could KO my team, or not, which could mean losing a match. Sometimes I have Spy cast Glee to banner/bird instead of attacking with varying results. But perhaps it could be made to your advantage with Mage’s Shock Shield, TBird’s Rage of Thunder, Princess’ Royal Order and/or Rogues’ Cupcake Trap + Sweet set.

If only we’re as lucky as @bubbley at rolling for Mythic Resurrection.

[angryde]

@pointless Well done, mate! Only you could reach diamond lackluster-ly! XD

[Pointless]

@angryde thanks! I did start the Season so late, so the leagues were not that competitive. Only last week to be promoted from Platinum did I actually grind, and only a bit. Guess I was lucky overall :)
May that luck hold for you.

[Jamairoqui]

@toolow @kennymcc @pointless I think a venomous lineup works pretty well against the thorn wall (mythic/normal) or spikey spike. The ones I hate are the teams that have the mana set *and* (M)TW (or SS) so that the vemon effects are not nearly as effective. Or the teams having the forest flute set, which make sweet/witch a lot less effective.

[DD]

@jamairoqui Agreed. In general, take down the banner as quickly as possible, and try to mitigate against birds being KO. Valiant set to bring back birds sooner, healers / Rage Shield to delay KO etc.

[Pointless]

@jamairoqui again agreed. Venomous is actually a very good setup to combat both popular new Arena Sets (Sky and Just), as the DoT overrides any immunity.
Not convinced with Valiant using Venomous, however. Probably better served with Blessed, or even the aforementioned Sky or Just Sets.

[Jamairoqui]

@pointless I think the only thing that will end the dominance of valiant in arena would be a nerf, something like knocking out the banner negating the squire effect so it always takes three turns for your birds to revive. Getting that extra move in is really effective, even with a venomous line-up.

Maybe it will turn out mythic resurrection combined with sonic set will be the valiant killer everyone is looking for. But I haven’t seen anything yet that can consistently beat my birds when they have a valiant-set flag. And I haven’t found anything that can consistently beat valiant-equipped opponents with higher level birds.

[Pointless]

@jamairoqui I have barked up that tree regarding inactive bonuses upon stun a few times before. I honestly don’t understand why it hasn’t yet been implemented.
There was a time when Venomous was the be all end all, really hard to lose when equipped and really hard to beat versus. This is, in essence, why Valiant was born, and became its demise. Not only does Valiant counter Venomous very effectively when equipped (with the obvious lessening in the time your Bird is down), but it also is not a very good Set to complement a Venomous lineup. Extra damage applied to very little initial damage is not the best way to use Venomous to its potential. So Rovio did its best to kill the Venomous lineup by introducing Valiant (and maybe went a bit too far).
Remember Valiant has already been nerfed, and I don’t think any further nerfs are necessary, nor will be accepted by the masses. Valiant has its weaknesses, just use some protection/ retaliation on your Birds and hit the Banner. Use AoE and Splash to help knock the enemy down, as there is no real defense involved in most Valiant setups.

[;)]

Haven’t seen this mentioned much, but saving all my weakest banner tops, flags, and emblems from season 1 as well as the old beginning weapons & off hand items for use in log outs has been invaluable to getting manageable opponent line-ups since most of the other methods have been rendered obsolete…

[Jamairoqui]

@pointless Then ABE will always be a race to see how fast you get a valiant setup. I don’t see any other set matching it, regardless of which birds you use. I might take next season off from playing arena seriously and fool around with different combinations to see if anything among the new sets works as well as Valiant.

As an aside, the mana set for Chuck was also partly responsible for the demise of Venomous line-ups.

@winkwink That gives you one easy match but then you have to reset everything and start and stop the game. If you need to really grind to catch up or stay ahead, that takes way too much time to be a routine strategy.

[;)]

Usually everything stays manageable after the reset for an hour or two of grinding. That’s when power sets like Elite Stone Guard with the dragon set, Wizard with the Bones set, and Elite Skulkers with the Beep set using the Mighty set or even the Angry set banner with Thorns will quickly finish most battles no matter the coin toss because of the Bones set revenge ability and the CG preference to attack Chuck first. Although I must say that having the Golden Chili sure helps – one of the better LC uses…

[Nightcrawler]

My leaderboard has been like this for a few hours now

[Pointless]

@jamairoqui yes, Mana is obviously a key introduction to kill Venomous, overlooked in my previous rant:)
I see many Just and Sky Sets in my recent Arena forays, so many think these are Valiant killers. I will admit they are are a royal pain to play against, but I do win in the end. Maybe it’s all a play to limit one’s Arena effectiveness and make the medals harder to come by, on top of the matching that has already been outlined by @datguygamer