Arena battle videos and discussion

[doriantoki]

Don't be silly, there are many ways to beat Derp.

[MysticKnightFF5]

None that the boards can come up with, they're all kneeling like sorry bitches to YUSODERP.
Put your money where your mouth is. No srsly, TAKIN' BETS!

[Pride]

CT5Holy's Two Sword funnies, Raven's Vipers Harem Ending, and Celdia's IAMSODERP all have victories over his team. Its not like his team is unbeatable. Just difficult while remaining competitive against all other teams.

[MysticKnightFF5]

Luck is another thing entirely, as well as being able to fight on par with other teams.

[Pride]

Obviously but that's not what you said. You asked why couldn't anyone make a team that could beat it, and there are teams that can and have won.

[doriantoki]

YUSD doesn't have undead or petrify protection.  That's Vampire Hunter's speciality.  The only problem I forsee, is getting it to land, since YUSD chemists have low faith, but once it does, they can't heal anymore.  One thing I am curious about, since I've never witnessed it, will auto-potion harm an undead unit?  Or will it not even trigger at all?

[CT5Holy]

Auto Potion will trigger and it will indeed harm an undead unit.

[RavenOfRazgriz]

YUSD doesn't have undead or petrify protection.

"Soft"

See: Y U SO DERP v B Team.

[formerdeathcorps]

Luck is another thing entirely, as well as being able to fight on par with other teams.

You make it sound like luck is somehow not an element of any competitive game.  There's no law saying a competitive game is not worthy if it is possible to create a winning team that uses repeated coin flips to favor themselves.  When you're using knives with 50% procs or dealing near lethal damage with one attack (even at 45% hit), it's in fact highly unlikely if none of those attacks ever go off.

As for being able to beat other teams, Mando's right, Arena right now is more of a rock/paper/scissors game than S5.
1) A team that runs a normal, distributed setup (1 mage, 1 physical, 1 support, 1 status) risks losing to most specialized teams.
2) There are certain specializations in Arena that have massive payoffs (like Y U SO DERP) and no diminishing returns for increasing specialization.  In other words, the harder you specialize, the more teams you beat.  The only problem is that the more you specialize in one of these, the easier it is to conceive of a counter-team, namely the team that can counteract all 2-3 of your strategies.  However, because of the depth of specialization, such teams have to devote 3-4 units to counter a team like Y U SO DERP, meaning they risk losing to the generalized squad.
3) Hence, we have a rock-paper-scissors cycle.  If anything, the existence of uber-defense squads forces the existence of things like Wiz's chiri/kiku spammers and scorpion tail (just like how in S5, having unevadable kiku was sort of necessary to stop abandon spam), and vice-versa.  Thus, Raven, scorpion tail right now is no more broken than your best squad.
4) The best way to break this deadlock is to make every offensive and defensive strategy as useful as possible (within the same order of magnitude, but not necessarily equal), which then makes countering the whole set impossible.

[formerdeathcorps]

Wiz, sorry for the double post, but when you are done recording all the videos, can you tell me the results after you post the videos?  I need to make the next round's brackets soon, and the system is fairly complicated (since I'm tracking overall wins/losses).

[doriantoki]

fdc speaks truth.  I've been noticing that the first thing I do when one of my teams loses, is either up the offence or defense to the extreme.  Middling seems counter productive in this tournament thus far.

[Wiz]

spoiler: Y U SO DERP v Vipers Harem Ending

How to Beat DERP.  Alternately: Why Scorpion Tail is broke.

Draw Out works very well too :P

Wiz, sorry for the double post, but when you are done recording all the videos, can you tell me the results after you post the videos?  I need to make the next round's brackets soon, and the system is fairly complicated (since I'm tracking overall wins/losses).

No need to apologize, but yeah, I'll tell you the results soon of the ones currently available. And I know what you mean, you're tracking the Win/Loss Ratio for each team in terms of rounds, not matches.

[Wiz]

Round 2 Match 11 Squidgy (My First Mime) vs Eternal248 (Blitz) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 12 fdc (Blood) vs Vigilanti (I KIN HURT YOU!) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 13 CT5Holy (Holy Stones) vs Dol (Ladies) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 14 fdc (Raiders) vs Celdia (Diamonds and Guns) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 15 Mando (Facial Reconstruction) vs fdc (Heroes) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 16 fdc (A Team) vs Truelight (Spiral of Dreams) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 17 fdc (Requisition) vs Doriantoki (Model Citizens) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 18 Angelus (Norm) vs CT5Holy (Rage on a Stick) Arena 1339

The remaining 10 matches should be up tomorrow, then after that, I'm done making Arena vids for quite a while. I'll still participate and be active, but only occasionally since I want to do other things besides just this (Not that I don't like doing this or anything).

[Celdia]

spoiler: Raiders vs. D&G

*sees length of video* Hahahaha, oh man I'm so fucked. XD 

[formerdeathcorps]

spoiler: Match 12

So evasion decided to turn on halfway into Round 2?  That really hurts to watch.  Vigilanti, you make very good use of luck on both of your squads to overcome higher damage.

In the future, since I make pairings by overall W/L statistics, always run maps in Large/Small/Medium order.  This way, in close matches, the Medium size map determines the winner (since this kind of map is the least biased towards team types).  This also allows the overall win/loss scores to be more even (i.e. a long-range team vs. a short range team will each have 1 win).

[doriantoki]

spoiler: Mime vs. Blitz

Lots of small damage, cover fire, mime and counter flood really killed it that first round.  Those ninjas getting separated and odined that second match ... ouch.

spoiler: Blood vs. Hurt

Magic rape, ohhhh yeeeaah!  Jump surprisingly effective against magic.  Entertaining match, especially that second round.  Except ... guarded Blood Strings = death knell!

spoiler: Holy vs. Ladies

lol at all the dying and rezzing first round.  Very low health on ladies, a risky setup ... monstrous rape that second and third round though, ouch.

spoiler: Raiders vs. Celdia

Dem carpets do mad damage, lol.  Both those bards should've Geo'd off the carpet, oh well, I guess the computer doesn't risk moving out of movement range with Teleport.

spoiler: Facial vs. Heroes

Anyone else find the colors totally confusing, lol?  Heroes spent a lot of time healing first match.  Pretty even back and forth.  Evade definite plus for Heroes.  Facial eventually gains the upper hand.  I'm not sure, but I think maybe Heroes spent too much time healing?  If you've got two dedicated healers, your other two units, assuming they're healthy, will go on the offensive, which is what is needed sometimes (like the Knights for example), just IMO though.

spoiler: A Team vs. Spiral

That Ninja evading left and right, savior, cause those bows HURT!  That crit screwing up that calculator too, wow, just bad luck all around for A Team.  Are flails broken?  I do think so my good sir!  The last two matches went a little more how I expected, but in this case, the RNG wasn't screwing A Team over.

spoiler: Requisition vs. Model Citizens

Interesting matches.  That triple MA Save that second round, hilarious.  You missed a 90% poke, that might've been the clincher.

spoiler: Norm vs. Rage

Norm won the momentum back that first round after raised Samurai gained a turn before either the enemy oracle or time mage.  That first stick hit missing the second round, cost you that one CT5 (charm was pretty brutal too, but that sent off the series of events), but overall the RNG is ALL OVER that second round, lol.

Is it just me or did these rounds of matches go by pretty quickly

Thanks for the matches Wiz

[Wiz]

Is it just me or did these rounds of matches go by pretty quickly

Thanks for the matches Wiz

No, it's just mine are in a higher quality compared to everyone elses + they're recorded at 200 FPS, the highest constant speed you can play them at. But hey, if it shaves of a few min off of each video, then I'm glad I saved you > 20 min of your time dishing out the same amount of content.

Anyways, 26-28 I'll have to wait until tomorrow to put up, don't have enough time to do so atm.

Round 2 Match 19 Squidgy (Faithless Cowards) vs TrueLight (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 20 Malroth (First Strike) vs CT5Holy (Two Sword Proc Funsies) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 21 Barren (Phantasy Star) vs fdc (Rivals) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 22 CT5Holy (Do Not Disturb) vs Barren (Deep Dungeon) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 23 Dol (Rare Skills) vs Eternal248 (Living Dead) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 24 Dol (I Hate Zalmo) vs DomieV (Song and Dance and Punch) Arena 1339

Round 2 Match 25 TrueLight (D.N Angel) vs Celdia (I AM SO DERP) Arena 1339

[doriantoki]

spoiler: Cowards vs. Weapons

First you put them to sleep, then you charm them, then you rape them.  And insult them by making them watch their friends die.  And then force them to sing sweet songs, before you rape them again.

spoiler: First Strike vs. Two Swords

Funsies, rapesies maybe.  Last Song can seem pretty broken at times.  Entertaining match.

spoiler: Star vs. Rivals

The first round Phantasy Star didn't get to use any hard hitting magic to take advantage of the priest and wizard's high faith, and the wizard's faith status.  But it was obvious second round, lol.  That Ninja is obsessed with stealing accessories, but I think she would be better suited to attack, at least possibly putting Rivals on the defensive.  That Summoner is just obscene, and those summons can out so damn fast.

spoiler: Disturb vs. Deep Dish Pizza

Counter arpe.

spoiler: Rare vs. Living

Those paladins only exists to live forever, don't they?  lol ... wow they can really take a beating.  Battle was basically over in 1 minute each round, with 6 minutes of trying to take down those damn paladins.

spoiler: Rare vs. Song Dance Punch

Why is wiznaibus triggering MP Restore ... ?  Nevermind, I just looked and for some reason thought it only triggered when terminal.  That dancer is sooooo lucky, all that HP Restores in a row.

spoiler: Angel vs. Derp

lol at all the back and forth.  Funny how when the Death Sentence units are ignored, the match finally changes direction.  Derp actually put a good fight, but I figured Angel would take it ... Why the pause to check the Priest's weapon power???

[formerdeathcorps]

Match 24 should be I Hate Zalmo vs. Song and Dance and Punch.

spoiler: Team Meeting

"Why are you saying it's my fault again?"
"You blew it.  All for a peek at a girl flatter than Corsa?"
"But she...I mean...Percy...he broke me out of it.  No harm, right?"
"No harm?  You kidding me?  That moment was all they needed to freeze us all in blocks of ice, you twit.  If you were paying attention, that wouldn't have happened."
"Skerf, enough.  It wasn't merely Slim who failed.  We all bear responsibility."
"Whaddaya mean?  I did my job.  No one survived my attacks!"
"Quit boasting.  You couldn't survive a light breeze!"
"Shut up, Slim!"
The door slammed behind them as Corsa left to meditate.  "Please God, tell me why..."

[Barren]

spoiler: me vs fdc

looks like in rounds 2 & 3 the tables were turned on you after what happened in round 1. Well your rivals team still is dangerous nonetheless. GG formerdeathcorps, good hard hitting match we had together

spoiler: me vs CT5Holy

Cursed Ring decided to be good to me in this match but I think I'll change my team around a little bit. GG CT5Holy, Do Not Disturb is still as good as ever IMO