PvP Quick Review for last week - 7.29.17

[mjmxiii]

Was ranked 64th this week. Ratios went up about 10% once I benched WTroll and sent Wrath to the PVE farm. Dusted off my GCR and finished strong at 24% against some noteworthy opponents and longtime troopers and went up to 92% in the win column. Was actually able to enjoy another Saturday with family, without dropping out of the top 100 in a matter of hours this time. Arena store still locks up, kinda of annoying but whatchya gon do?

It helps to have two chars with the talisman combo of Energy/Explosive. These will not be nearly as effective once the BNW update comes out. I guess Strike talismans won't proc as much as they do now either so not too bothered by it, actually gonna welcome the change if it is truly across the board for all proc rates like Sparton mentioned.

Pumped with the news coming out regarding BNW and the speculated 3rd dungeon that is hopefully accompanying its release. Looks like we're gonna have some new chars, challenges and levels in the coming weeks and its about fuckin' time!!

Speaking of new chars, finally summoned CG this week and getting the news about his updates is just icing on the cake! Also pulled the Clairvoyant from my 3rd Eternal soul, so I'm a lucky 3-for-3 in that respect, but still looking for Beelzebub.

Anyway, digging the video dump thread (thanks ritchbe!) and things are looking good for LotB in general!

Cheers and see you all in the arena!

Edit: Actually finished in 63rd spot and forgot to give some well deserved props to this week's winners...

Top 10
1. GMAC - 7464 VP!
2. Kamuz - 5278
3. Carlos - 4578
4. Nicko
5. Blacksteel
6. FallenAngel
7. Cyburion
8. Drivenbyfate
9. zidar
10. LordSchmeb

[slauki]

attacks: 200ish
defenses 178:

anyway my def took a big hit last week, and many people i spoke with had the same experience. so i hope some of you guys will share your personal experience on this topic. i have my def for many weeks and it had always the same hold%. but this week was completly difference for some reason. which leads me into speculations:

possible factors for dropping defenses:

1. new guardians talismans are making fury generation faster, this could decide the game in your favour more often. in addition to this they can be considered as "poor mans shells", so people without the shells have a somewhat solid substitute. that could make a broader range of players dangerous and more successfull on offense.
2. the recent events gave us a lot of great chars, so the average roster could be stronger in general (yeah i'm talking about you blue COTD :P )
3. the video coaching might actually show people how to buid up some smart attack strategy, which is okay, but it could hurt our defense. at least it was pretty easy so see, how broken
some talismans are, which leads me to:
4. broken talisman combos are getting more popular. i'd say that enegry talismans and GCR are a nearly unbeatable combo. you have to be extreme unlucky to loose a fight with them in the most cases but it costs you a lot of speed.

another thing i would like to discuss:
90% of all good defenses have a specific combo of chars, mostly wrath/ssd combo. the red buzz is also getting very popular these days. all in all i feel the only char who can make a significant difference nowadays is wrath.
i think his powermove is somewhat out of line and his standard damage is a too high with the additional aoe buff removal (his fury sucks for sure). he is the char who makes your defense much more dangerous and who can make your life way easier on offense. the possible speed advantage is huge. all who use him to play LOL or knows how easy he cuts through the levels. if you compare this with other chars you will see a significant difference.
so he is still the toon of the moment, despite the reduced removal chances. that said, some adjustments would be necessary for him imo.

aside this one final note: let's hope for BNW this week, since there was no new event this could be an indicator, that something is cooking, man i really looking forward to this. it will completly change the meta again, but that doesn't matter, the patchnotes looked very reasonable to me. and if they fix what they said the game will become much better. so let's hope for a smooth start...

[ritchbe]

Anyway, digging the video dump thread (thanks ritchbe!) and things are looking good for LotB in general!

Really happy that the thread got so much attention and would like to point out that I only borrowed the idea from Nicko and gave it some time, so I also thank him :)

Was trying to push only the last day, but it seems that combining Wrath with WUR, in a strike talisman combo, took some speed out of my attack; coudn't keep up with Nicko who dropped in top 10 like warm knife through a butter and finished 4th with same playtime.

Copying Gmac's defense the last day helped some more def points than my usual. Will be exciting to come up with the usable teams after the BNW update changes.

Can't say much about my stats, because they're broken. Def held at 18% while attack shows 0.

Given the last few yards, was happy to see I finished in the top 10.

Congratulations to all!

[Nicko]

mjmxiii - thanks for keeping this thread alive - I think with a lot of the upcoming changes and tunings there will always be a place for it!

And Zidar - thanks for taking that video idea and running with it! Number of hits is huge and it will only continue to grow as new players come on board.

And yeah - I think I timed things well yesterday with my climb. However - those attacks started POURING in and the lack of Holds was working against me at the end. Combined with two back-to-back losses to GMAC (who I readily beat all week with a team I put together just for his team - should have changed back - lesson learned ;)) and a really fast Black Steel on my tail 4th place certainly wasn't easy.

With that being said - I just took myself OFF the video list to see if it makes a difference :p. My defense was at 18% last week - it's worst week ever. And man - do you feel that in the final hours. Of course you're being attacked by the best of the best on Saturday - but I also want to see if not showing my cards with a new defense I put together helps. This Eternal lottery is nutty - just got my third Wrath - so trying to make lemons out of lemonade. Of course I change defenses like a woman changes shoes so there may be a few variations...

I think Slauki brings up a lot of valid points. It seems in this environment - with all the weapons we have available - it's tough to lose if you play smart - and that the way most defenses win is by taking the control away from the player. Crowd control or forcing their hand. It's why SSDs with Strikes are everywhere - and Red Buzz as well - cause he controls who you attack. He's a pesky bugger and that steal-back is maddening when he has a set of strikes. I have a friend who's a Top 10 player and had a defense of 30% last week - and I'm sure my defensive nemesis (but also great Trooper) Kamuz had a solid percentage (finally beat you a couple times yesterday bud ;)) - and 24% is awesome mjmxiii - but I also know many great players who are struggling to top 20%. I think someone on the video thread mentioned theirs was 9%, and EZZ had mentioned he had over 6 pages of attacks without a single Hold - and his defense in my opinion is as solid as anyones.

I look forward to reading additional thoughts...

Finally - speaking of Kamuz - when he had 3rd place in the bag he borrowed a page from Black Steel and put in a lone SoL Eddie. Very cool!

[Blacksteel]

Def took a big hit here too, made more changes than usual trying to make up for the perceived meta, ended up screwing big friday night and woke up to 41 straight defense losses, anyway.
I agree with what Slauki mentions and would comment that it was surprising to see so many teams using GCR(Lucy) with energy steal + prisoner, these are already kind of OP characters by themselves (especially Lucy) and can be way too effective/costly/flexible against most teams.

I would venture to say that having these characters included would likely make for the best defense possible nowadays.
These characters/combos are not invincible, just unbalanced and to some point annoying, lets hope that the soon to come adjustments to Lucy and other characters along with BNW makes for a more level playing field.

Also it's worth to comment that the most effective defense I had happened when I went 'back to basics' an started to include SSD and/or Mummy Eddie, a team back from the deepest abyss, ye olde good times, just as Nicko mentions, which BTW had a great comeback, great job Nicko.

It was a very close competition this week everyone fighting to the very end so well done.
Special thanks go to Kamuz for making the last fight of the day a relief, you really did put a smile on my face with that Speed of light Eddie \m/.

[R1ck]

Congrats Gmac for eternal once again.

Something different I could notice is the less points needed to get top 25, I finished 22 with the same amount of points I finished the week before, around rank 40. It may be because people is loosing interest in PVP.
IMO energy talismans proc is helping more attackers and making defense's holds rate go down, everything will change again with the next update.

Edit: thanks to Kamuz as well, helped me to reach 22.

[Askora]

Congrats to everyone at the top! Some of you could have given me a little break. Haha It's all good though, I appreciate the competition.

I stuck with free SoW until the very end and had to fight a few extra battles to get back in the top 100. Posted 95, with 24 attacks and 187 defends. Sounds pretty impressive that way. Probably closer to 200 attacks.

Might have played a little harder, but was trying to make the most of the double rare souls deals. I managed 3 tier 6 sacrifices (including sacrificing a couple of rare non-dupes). Think I'm only missing one of the ones I sacrificed now, so all good. For my trouble I got 4 skill shards and 15 rare g/a. Not really what I was hoping for as I was wanting to get more legendary souls. The few I managed didn't pan out, but I did get Aces High from one of the rare g/a and Pharaoh from one of the rares so it wasn't all bad. I think I'm only missing Eternity (3rd eternal was a dupe Clairvoyant, was hoping for Eddie or Beelzebub) and Mystic for the full Eddies collection, until BNW which will probably bring another Eddie (Trooper?) into the mix.

I somewhat agree with Slauki that Wrath can be a bit OP, but with the upcoming change to fix the talismans I think it will balance out. I personally think all the eternals are a bit OP. They should be powerful, but the way things stand there are few top defenses that don't have at least one so they've killed some of the variety in pvp. Beelzebub with counter attack and energy can be quite lethal when paired with a buff remover. There's also SSD, but he's pretty much nerf proof and has remained a staple on a lot of defenses since open pvp began.

Defensively I don't know how much the videos hurt me, not too worried about it as I'm good with posting in the top 100. My defense is getting a bit stale and probably a bit of the reason for a slight drop in holds this week. Working on a new defense, but still a lot of kinks to work out. On offense I usually don't have too much issue, other than when I lose the coin toss and I face a team that manages to get nearly all perfect attacks (the videos of my defensive losses don't seem to show that same effectiveness with my team). I personally think that defensive teams should be at least 90% on perfect attacks, it might mean more losses but it would be at least closer to what a human player can do. I'm looking forward to BNW and the changes that will accompany it, maybe I'll manage to get some of the explosive talismans that have defeated me on occasion. The flip side is that, I expect they won't be nearly as effective on defense if they proc correctly with the changes. It would be nice if they'd fix it so the harpy doesn't get stunned by them as well, since technically she shouldn't be. I think that would help balance them out.

[Tridimensionale]

Glad to see you are ok Askora!

Rank 98 here.. i barely played this week so thats good..

[Kamuz24z]

Last week it felt like not many were fighting for the top spots i stop playing 2 1/2 hours before reset and i was around 1500 points away from third place and still finished second i hope the next update brings different teams and players fighting for Eternal and thanks to mjmxiii to keep this thread alive.

Stats
Attack 445
Defense 283

[Browno]

I got place 222 and usually get in top 250 each week without any extra sow spent.
I had a hold rate of 24% vs 32% the week before this. I do not believe it got worse from videos since nobody seem to encounter me here :p
I did change def team however. I do not have gcr or wrath so a decent def is still managable without those toons.

[slauki]

I got place 222 and usually get in top 250 each week without any extra sow spent.
I had a hold rate of 24% vs 32% the week before this. I do not believe it got worse from videos since nobody seem to encounter me here :p
I did change def team however. I do not have gcr or wrath so a decent def is still managable without those toons.

once you get in the range of ranks between 50 and 10 things will change a lot. defenses of even 50% and more are possible when you are at rank 500 with a good defense. but when you are in the topspots things will change a lot and your def will go down extremly fast.

i usually start with ridiculously high defense stats in the first 2 days because also lowranks can attack me. from midweek on it will get worse, when get too far ahead of the lowranks...on saturday i barely see a hold at all sometimes....

[Askora]

Glad to see you are ok Askora!

Rank 98 here.. i barely played this week so thats good..

Thanks Tridimensionale! I'm holding up, one more trip and hopefully back to 98%. :D


once you get in the range of ranks between 50 and 10 things will change a lot. defenses of even 50% and more are possible when you are at rank 500 with a good defense. but when you are in the topspots things will change a lot and your def will go down extremly fast.

i usually start with ridiculously high defense stats in the first 2 days because also lowranks can attack me. from midweek on it will get worse, when get too far ahead of the lowranks...on saturday i barely see a hold at all sometimes....

I second that! Defense at the beginning and end of the week are entirely unrelated. Even at rank 100 it's a pretty big change in hold rates as your defense then gets attacked many times by higher ranked players.

[Blacksteel]

I got place 222 and usually get in top 250 each week without any extra sow spent.
I had a hold rate of 24% vs 32% the week before this. I do not believe it got worse from videos since nobody seem to encounter me here :p
I did change def team however. I do not have gcr or wrath so a decent def is still managable without those toons.

Yes a defense is manageable even if you don't have GCR, Prisoner or Wrath (Wrath to a lesser extent as most are kind of squishy, still dangerous), but is more difficult to be effective, also the higher you get on the ladder the more your defense is tested and hold rate gets affected as everyone and their dogs attack and revenges on your team.

[Kardas]

Small tip to everyone- what I do to make sure I have accurate attack stats is to make a screenshot just before or after making my last attack for the week.

Anyway onto my stats:
Rank: 39
Points: 3702
Tier: Warlord I
Attack Wins: 199/213 (93%)
Defense Wins: 32/189 (17%)

I am very pleased with this outcome. Making it all the way to Top 50 with only one Guard set, and only two Immunity sets! And without spending ironite on refills either! Though it helped that I Sacrificed a bunch of Common Soul stacks this weekend and ended up with 16 extra SoW. Which was nice, but I did that just before going to bed and had to stay up another hour to get through that stack. So that's a lesson for next time: don't Sacrifice before going to sleep!
Still, it was a good week: I finally maxed my Wrath and set him on the defense, completed 1 Enduring and 3 Guard sets, and stumbled across some form of speed team that will probably lose relevance once the next update comes through.
Regardless, top 50 is nice, and about where I'd want to be. I'd be very happy if I can continue reaching the top 50 with minimal investment. Even then, top 100 isn't so bad either.

[Monte47]

I finished 50th last week. I was playing for fun, but when I hit the 70's, I thought I may as well grind for the extra loot. My defense didn't hold after 100, and tbh, my win rate was probably my worst ever. Also, seems my ratio of attacks to defense was weird.
Attacks 421
Defense 298
Generally they are at least 90%.

The videos are fun, and though some feel it hurts their defense, really, its just hard to hold above two hundred. I imagine most of us hold up there for one of two reasons- offense lost coin toss, or someone is messing about trying a new offense. I've started using my Shaman with explosives on offense, and it's fun, but... he isn't sharded, and it's no bueno sometimes to have used him.

Can't wait for new content. I only play the worlds now for my troopers. I love the arena, I'll never take the time to try for eternal probably, but I play it all the time because it's the best part of the game imo. I love seeing creative toon pairings that aren't just three sets of counter strikes.

Congrats on another win Gmac!

Cheers
Eskiggalu

[gmac]

Hi guys

Thanks everyone that congratulated me :)

Attacks: 700+ (did not take a pic this time)
Defenses: 417

My defense drooped 5 basis points. Interesting enough, my offense dropped 1 base point too.

Best defense out there: Buttons gone missing. Man I hate when that happens, had a few this past week. (Jokes a part I'd say Kamuz and Lulero's are the best I faced this week)

Like Nicko pointed out, you need specific teams for special situations (in his example, my team). And It's hard when you are trying to clear lists fast, you need to make these changes rapidly. If we could have like favorite toons, so we could make changes faster, that would be great. It would be perfect if we had quick selection of teams, two or three pre selected squads.

It takes a lot going for Eternal. I slept very few hours from Friday to Saturday. After Arena closed I was a wreck, totally exhausted. I need a break, so I'm not going for Eternal this week.

Cheers
gmac

[Mariner-1212]

Congrats on yet another Eternal, gmac!

[Lulero]

I can't remember my attack count.
Defense was at 43/233 (19%), not bad considering I got 30 extra SoW early in the week from sacrifice and been facing nothing but the top.
Ended 48th with no refills.

Congratulation Gmac! Also my greatest achievement ever in this game is probably your mention to my defensive lineup, much appreciated! I'll go enlarge it, print it, frame it and put it on display!

On a last note, if you never tried at least for top 10 seriously, it's hard to picture how stellar is Gmac repeated performance.

EDIT: Forgot a thing I wanted to add, DrivenByFate. He's been pointed as a possible invisible, I've seen him in both my attack and defense list, although not as much as some others, and his defense was very legit (and impressive given his level).

[mjmxiii]

First, gratz Gmac for the Eternal reign. If you really take a break this week, that's gonna open it up for a new champ to take the crown. Who's it gonna be?

Me? Hell no! I'm burnt from finishing in the Top 100 last week and currently sit ranked #1455...

Last Weeks Top 3 (If no Gmac)
1. Kamuz
2. Carlos
3. Nicko

To early to tell this week but only about a 320 point difference between Eternal and Top 20.

Good luck with the run guys!

[gmac]

First, gratz Gmac for the Eternal reign...

Hey mjm!

Thank you for keeping this tradition alive, great job :)

And yes, I've made my mind, not going this week.

Cheers
gmac

[Monte47]

I can't remember my attack count.
Defense was at 43/233 (19%), not bad considering I got 30 extra SoW early in the week from sacrifice and been facing nothing but the top.
Ended 48th with no refills.

Congratulation Gmac! Also my greatest achievement ever in this game is probably your mention to my defensive lineup, much appreciated! I'll go enlarge it, print it, frame it and put it on display!

On a last note, if you never tried at least for top 10 seriously, it's hard to picture how stellar is Gmac repeated performance.

EDIT: Forgot a thing I wanted to add, DrivenByFate. He's been pointed as a possible invisible, I've seen him in both my attack and defense list, although not as much as some others, and his defense was very legit (and impressive given his level).

I've had drivenbyfate numerous times

Edit: relevant https://imgur.com/a/E6f8n

[Kamuz24z]

First, gratz Gmac for the Eternal reign. If you really take a break this week, that's gonna open it up for a new champ to take the crown. Who's it gonna be?

Me? Hell no! I'm burnt from finishing in the Top 100 last week and currently sit ranked #1455...

Last Weeks Top 3 (If no Gmac)
1. Kamuz
2. Carlos
3. Nicko

To early to tell this week but only about a 320 point difference between Eternal and Top 20.

Good luck with the run guys!

Well shaolinlondo is back and looks like that he wants eternal I just wonder if jofer is coming back as well

[Nicko]

Well shaolinlondo is back and looks like that he wants eternal I just wonder if jofer is coming back as well

Hilarious - I thought the same thing! That the one thing that would draw Jofer out of retirement is a Shaolin run for Eternal - not even necessarily to claim it - but just to make sure Shaolin has to earn it...