Arena battle videos and discussion

[formerdeathcorps]

So I can't run the physical + magical secondary that worked so well in 1.3.  All right, then my team should look like this.

spoiler

Walker
Male
Pisces
70
40
Squire
Geomancy
Counter Flood
Magic Attack UP
Move HP-UP
Rune Sword
Aegis Shield
Twist Headband
Wizard Outfit
Magic Gauntlet

Accumulate, Yell, Wish
All Geomancy

Hunter
Male
Pisces
70
40
Squire
Geomancy
Counter Flood
Magic Attack UP
Move HP-UP
Rune Sword
Aegis Shield
Twist Headband
Wizard Outfit
Magic Gauntlet

Accumulate, Yell, Wish
All Geomancy

Charlie
Male
Scorpio
70
40
Monk
Ninjitsu

Equip Armor
Move +1


Barbuta
Power Sleeve
Bracer

Stigma Magic, Chakra, Revive
Shuriken, Hokouton

Vyne
Male
Cancer
70
40
Monk
Ninjitsu

Equip Armor
Move +1


Barbuta
Power Sleeve
Bracer

Stigma Magic, Chakra, Revive
Shuriken, Hokouton

[Wiz]

fdc (and everyone else), follow Pokeytax's wisdom in the Team Submissions thread for organizational purposes please

spoiler: From the OP

EDIT YOUR POST TO UPDATE YOUR TEAMS - ONE POST PER PERSON

^, if you want one of us (Me, Barren, FFM, and whoever else that'll hopefully step up to the plate) to know of your team changes, please notify us via PM because there's a good chance that we're not going to check the Team Submssions thread five times a day just to look for updates ;)

After watching more of these matches, I'm starting to realize just how unbalanced Arena's becoming due to the exploits that are occurring (Geomancy, DO, "X Save" spamming, Sing/Dance + Miming). I won't get into anymore detail here since I'm addressing (am typing up) these very things in the 131 questionnaire thread atm XP

[Pierce]

spoiler: Dol (Fish) vs Angelus (Angelic)

I wonder just how much PA those mimes had at the end of Round 2. I'm so glad they managed to pull off 999 damage, I was waiting the whole fight for that to happen.

[Barren]

Shade (Snakes) vs Eternal248 (Elite Four)

Dol (Proc) vs Wiz (The Speedsters) V2

Malroth (Not your usual Song and Dance) vs True Light (Dark Chronicles)

Malroth (Mad Science) vs The Damned (Promo)

Aquilae (Shish Kebab) vs formerdeathcorps LOLOLOLOLOL WTF!!!

[The Damned]

(Ah, Carve Model. Still probably the ability with the most hax potential [that actually sees use] sans maybe the less common Water Ball.)

Hmmm...I feel like I'm forgetting something, but that's probably just because I need to respond to the Questionnaire thread (again...).

So, thanks again Barren. Also, I have new team now since I have horrible luck with Cursed Ring's potential resurrection; so "Promo" is temporarily retired for now--I could easily just give Ghost Rider something, but that's hardly the only problem with that team.

[Barren]

Eternal248 (Elite Four) vs RavenOfRazgriz (Y U SO DERP)

Dol (Flare II) vs Vigilanti (I Kin Hurt You!)

zxpr0jk (Undeath) vs Angelus (Angelic)

[Angelus]

Bloody Hell my holy themed team is getting crushed, seemingly everytime too :/

ahh well, I suppose ill do a new team by tomorrow for anyone to record

Cheers Mate!

[Vigilanti]

Oh...my...god...HELL YEA!!! I love this team I came up with now!!! Remember everyone I KIN HURT YOU! 4 Real! you don't even know! LOLZ

Anyways, GG Dol

[DomieV]

Good matches....kinda surprised I beat Squidgy....anyways ill think of a new team since everyone is getting sick and tired of the SOS Song and Dance

[The Damned]

(Damn. I feel a bit better my new team has two units that absorb Lightning.)

That might be for the best, DomieV. Otherwise I'd have to lead a lynch mob again you and your kind for their sins.

Bloody Hell my holy themed team is getting crushed, seemingly everytime too :/

ahh well, I suppose ill do a new team by tomorrow for anyone to record.

Cheers Mate!

You're actually doing well enough for only your second team.

Given that I only saw Wednesday that I apparently gave you theme idea, I'll (try to) give you a bit of advice since I feel I'm partly to blame:

spoiler: Advice That Leads to Eternal Damnation

• You probably don't want to have your team all be able to heal each other, at least if there's no AoE healing among your units and the way you're healing is readily evadable, as seen with your Priest blocking that Silver Bow shot again Dol's Fish team.


• Similarly, you probably want to be able to give most, if not all, your units the options to bypass units that block your main strategy, in this case units that absorb Holy. Only your Paladin and Lancer can do that reliably, which is why I'm guessing you gave the Archer Steal Accessory and other equipment destruction, though that's unreliable.


• It's rather ill-advised to give Archer's an ability that requires them to be close, especially if it's not guaranteed. Given how the AI seems prioritize things, it will either charge blindly in range and get murdered (even with Equip Armor) despite the fact that needs to move back out at range (or heal itself and run away) or it will just ignore the skill. The same goes for Mediator and Chemist when they use guns.


• It's probably best not to go above Jump Vertical 3 given that's often the maximum difference between most panels and surrounding panels on all sides. You could easily get more mileage out of Ignore Height movement and Jump Vertical 3 than you'll probably get out of Jump +1 and Jump Vertical 5, especially you have to pay to get into Archer just for that; so it's really 250 JP instead of 0 JP.

Everything else I think you can figure out by trial and error.

Angelic EDIT (08/05/2011 - 1:16 A.M.): Whoops. Almost forgot. For the record, when I made that comment, I was actually talking about how your user name made me want to make a team based on either Buffy's Angelus or The Darkness's Angelus...because I'm a dork like that.

[formerdeathcorps]

(Ah, Carve Model. Still probably the ability with the most hax potential [that actually sees use] sans maybe the less common Water Ball.)

Don't overvalue Carve Model just because I got a 1/125 occurrence happen in my match.  A properly built esuna/stigma magic team (as long as they aren't split up) should counter that strategy, which essentially amounts to a 19% chance of at least breaking their initiative.  Aquilae lost more on the fact my squad could attack after his had moved (so I had first strike + nice AoE targets).

There seems to be a group of you all who want to remove anything that could decisively shift the advantage of a match to another team.  I personally think that if no such tactics exist in S6, it would not be worth entering; the game would become too deterministic.

[Shade]

Welcome the team 1337 Magic!!!!!!!!

[zxpr0jk]

Surprised I won even one game with that team. I only entered them so I had a team at all, and to test individual things before putting them into a real team.

That said, I can't get the bad taste of dancing mimes out of my mouth. Dancing mimes on a large map = 1 or 2 rounds of free damage considering +movement is scarce. Wiznaibus x6 before the enemy ever gets close. If they hunker down and defend, they take another wave of wiznaibus. If they attack, they'll get mopped up by wiznaibus a couple waves later. It can do enough damage to anti-sandbag full map, always hits, and afaik can't be countered. So eating 6 40-60ish damage per character will amount 240damage per character, per wave, or 960 damage to the whole team after a single volley. That wouldn't be disgusting if it weren't so fast and 100%. So by the time your team has even reached the enemy, they're already in grave danger.

And maybe I haven't seen their true potential, but the paladin moveset is very lackluster and a little confused. The only ranged skill it has is MA based, yet Paladin MA is abysmal, as well as the adjusted damage for the target's Faith. It also has the holy element which can be absorbed/negated by fairly solid items while still doing no extra damage to anyone since undead is so costly that +1 Stats across the board isn't enough. It can't fight on a larger map because of the least move potential in the patch. As a secondary, it puts an otherwise offensive unit into a mixed role where, it would otherwise be offense all the time. Now you waste a solid damage turn to survive, which gives the enemy a turn to survive as well. I consider the paladin class both weak and counter-productive. I'd love an example of paladins being used effectively. Other offensive physical outclass it. Other defensive healers outclass it. It has almost no status utility. It obviously isn't an MA monster. Their large HP pool and defensive ability would be useful if the enemy targeted high HP units over squishies but they don't.

Those are just my thoughts, I could be missing something that makes them amazing, but from what I've seen, Paladins are a burden on any team and DancingMimes do absurd damage at no risk. Unless you're making a team of Woody Allens wearing breastplates.

[Barren]

Red World (The Dawn Brigade) vs True Light (Crimson Riot)

DomieV (Diversity) vs Angelus (Bum Rushing)

Dol (Rare Skills) vs True Light (Mages of Doom)

[Malroth]

That said, I can't get the bad taste of dancing mimes out of my mouth. Dancing mimes on a large map = 1 or 2 rounds of free damage considering +movement is scarce. Wiznaibus x6 before the enemy ever gets close. If they hunker down and defend, they take another wave of wiznaibus. If they attack, they'll get mopped up by wiznaibus a couple waves later. It can do enough damage to anti-sandbag full map, always hits, and afaik can't be countered. So eating 6 40-60ish damage per character will amount 240damage per character, per wave, or 960 damage to the whole team after a single volley. That wouldn't be disgusting if it weren't so fast and 100%. So by the time your team has even reached the enemy, they're already in grave danger.

I've never actually seen a wizanabus team win,  Even with optimized PAtk gear PA save and overwhelm i've only seen Wizanabus hit for 32 max and most of the time its in the low 20s. It also gives the opponents a 100% hit rate against you due to continious charging, and is effortlessly countered by speed save, hp restore, dragon spirt, regenerator, or damage split.    While it is a good counter to phenoix down spam  for anti sandbag  in almost every other case the dancer would be better off hitting an opponent with their scarf rather than continious wizanabus. 

[zxpr0jk]

Wiz does less damage than I previously thought, but still at an average of 25 damage per tic, multiplied by 3, it is 75 mapwide damage to each enemy. Multiplied by 4 enemies amounts to 300 damage to the team. That's not extreme. But as was already mentioned, it is extremely fast and consistent. Because of that speed, the enemy team will eat two wiz volleys before they make significant contact with the enemy. 600 damage before the two teams have even begun to clash. 1200 if there are two dancers and two mimes. It's funny that you say you've never seen a Wiz team win, because I have seen one win 4 times in the last month. Someone here is talking a bit of fluff.

I wish I had more games to reference, but I've only seen Domie's team in two matches. Nothing against Domie, btw, I'm glad his team exists so I have something to reference. With respect to his team, I adjusted the dance counts above, but in a 2d2m setup, that'd be 25*6*4=600 damage. That's double the damage for one more dedicated dancer. Two volleys of that will cripple/kill any team. That's not even calculating DPCT(Damage Per Clock Tic) when you consider, the longer the match goes on, the more damage is piled on the enemy team. In order to win, the enemy has to have a solid grasp on the win by their third turns or get an extremely lucky proc somewhere.

The fact that they are easily hit while performing is negated since they maintain distance from the enemy while performing. Only on small maps would the enemy team have a chance to attack the dancers, and that's if they have opted to ignore the mimes(strong units themselves). Which brings me to my next point, That's not 300 damage being done by three characters, that's 300 damage done by one character because it doesn't eat any mime actions. They still have considerable PA and life themselves as well as solid innates. So, again to reference Domie v Squidgy, It did about 300 damage to the enemy team in the first few turns. Then an additional 250ish from Mime punches. So if there is a bottleneck, the Dancing team has pumped out at least 500 damage to the enemy team while the enemy has returned effectively nothing. And, if there were an additional Dancer, the damage would be upwards of 850 damage. Before any real clash could happen.

I would advise against using words like "effortlessly" when talking about counters if you're not going to give each counter the genuine scrutiny it deserves. I have seen the Domie's wiz team win 4 out of 5 times. So let me "effortlessly" explain why those counters are weak/too costly in comparison to Wiz spam. Really... horrible choice of words.

Speed Save) Speed Save on Sguidgy's Paladins kept him in the game, but never gave him an advantage despite proccing almost every single time. What it did do, is give his Paladins a turn to heal before being hit by the next Wiznaibus volley. It didn't counter at all. On more range capable units like archers, it has a shot, but not much of one as the enemy team will still be keen on taking out the mimes first since they're already close. Even then, missing a mime could be an instant loss.

Damage Split) If Damage Split even can proc on it, it won't proc every time. So the max it can return is 25(wiz)x3(casts)x2(max damage split)/2(half damage)=75 damage. To be fair, it will drop the damage from the Dancers by 75 as well. So it becomes 225 damage against the enemy team. Output was 225(about 53 per unit) damage, return was 75(about 25 per unit). Spread among three on the enemy team. Damage Split does not counter Wiz spam. It does, at best, as well as Speed Save, getting you an extra turn, but arguably less effective since it doesn't have stacking benefits.

Regenerator) Simply put, it doesn't stack and requires the unit to get a turn before it regens. It can't keep up. Even on tanky units, that's what 50 hp restored per turn? When you're eating 60(actually more since two volleys will happen before a paladins next turn), how is Regenerator "effortlessly" countering again? Btw, the unit will still use a turn to heal/run since the heal happens after their turn completes.

Dragon Spirit) Again, doesn't stack. And has the added weakness of bringing people back with barely enough hp to survive a volley. If they have enough, they'll enter an endless loop until they don't proc a Dragon Spirit on the first hit. Otherwise, that Reraise didn't help at all. Their first turn will always be used to run/heal so that's a lost turn as well. And don't forget, this damage is ignoring the output of Mimes and completely disconnected turns allowing them to go ahead and kill them with one punch when they reraise if their CT lines up before the next Wiznaibus.

HP Restore) Gotta Admit, this one has potential. But it won't proc most of the time so only the tankiest of units will be able to get a chance. Not to mention only two people have it. And in addition, it would cost 750jp to actually get, or 1500jp for two characters in order to counter 350 on one unit of the enemy team. So you have two units(1500jp, hp gear, and specific reaction) countering 1 unit(350jp, varied gear, varied reaction), that won't work 100%. When it works, it'll be nice, but I am not going to rely on HP restore to win games for me. For every 25 games HP Restore will win, 75 games will go to the Wiz team. Especially if there are large maps in the rotation.

Which brings me to my final point, large maps or obstructed maps give the dancers a minimum 300hp lead before the game even starts. That's about the HP of an entire unit. For no risk. No loss, and while advancing their melee forces. In fact, if the mimes ever chose to just chill next to the dancers, it'd be 600+ unreturned damage. The longer it takes the enemy team to close the gap, the deeper in the whole they go. They don't have to die, just have to get low enough to enter sandbag mode. If they ever close on the Dancers, they still have tremendous PA and are still entirely capable of finishing someone with their scarf.

There's no such thing as an effortless counter. There are convenient counters, but anything that is bought with the express purpose of defending against one tactic is far from effortless, and in this case extremely costly or fails to counter at all. Be a little bit more respectful with your word choice and do the small amount of homework if you're going to refute something. I'm all for hearing how I'm incorrect, but you didn't give anything to support your argument. I may be making a mountain out of a molehill, but I have at least 2 molehills and some math to support my claims.

If Domie wouldn't mind explaining why he opted for a Bard and a Dancer instead of just two Dancers, that'd be nice too. He likely knows something I don't, because if I were to build the team, I'd get the second dancer and double my damage output in the first two turns. Could always put throw item/Raise 2 on a Dancer and have her pick up a mime.

[DomieV]

Well zxpr0jk I was watching Arena videos for a little bit and I do like mime teams so and I remember watching Celdia's team in action when they had a Beta Tourney (The One where CT5Holy won) and saw her 2x Dancer 2x Mime team in affect

I thought to myself that she had neat offense but not a lot of defense because its not always often that the dance would use item when the mimes are in critical so I came up with a variation of her team only 2x Mime and 1 Dancer and 1 Bard to pretty much cover both offense and defense

Simply put my mimes help out as anti-sandbag and can be helpful at sandbagging as well even with a team speed average of 32 (8-8-8-8) plus battle song makes the dancing stronger as well as the mime's damage output obviously

And again, after seeing it in action it can be OP I guess but I gave both bard and dancer high HP and Damage Split so they can tank a little bit better and still do damage considerably...of course there are other ways to use mimes effectively like triple summon (Dol's team which is I think now retired) or even triple geomancy/drawout but those have its risks too

So I went with the easiest way to use the mimes as the driving force of Song and Dance....it even beat Squidgy's Save Me team which im kinda of surprised at considering he is a pretty damn good player in Arena and I'm just a rookie

But i did make a new team because I can see people getting sick of the SOS results from my Song and Dance team so hopefully I'll make another mime team but tweak what I have going for me right now

[Pride]

Personally, I think Celdia's biggest weakness in the beta tournament wasn't necessarily the two dancers but having both of them locked in with Iron Boots which basically meant if the mimes fall... They probably aren't getting up. There have been a few successful dance/sing spam teams, they just aren't overly powerful.

[Barren]

Yea true....I've always felt iffy about Iron Boots. I mean sure it has its purpose but to me most of the time it can make the unit worthless if they can't dish out strong offense

[Pride]

Yeah, I really haven't seen Iron Boots used effectively. There have been a few teams here and there that have had it worked (Pokeytax had a decent team iirc) but not in a way I would really consider them. Matches can too easily become 2 vs. 4.