I think I'm an Arena HAS BEEN!

[edsel]

No seriously ML I have been at it for a few hours off and on but am losing heart, I just don't seem competitive anymore, and what do you mean by sandbagging?

Sandbagging in drag racing refers to adding weight (bags of sand) to your car, racing and losing so everyone sees your shit performance, then after they all think you are an easy target to beat, you discard the sandbags and take them off guard for a kill.
Rags you do exactly what I have done, analyze and emulate my troopers setup after getting flogged with what I thought was tough. Often the teams I lose to are because of AI boost, not my talismans. Then I look at my defense, running exactly the same team, and a player I lost to has multiple gold badges as they lost repeatedly to me when they were driving and I had the AI boost. Last weeks event forced me to play into top levels and run against all the familiar names and this was the case.
Now I can return to my 1 a day arena fight for daily reward and not get stressed trying to outsmart a rigged AI boost situation, arena is not giving adequate rewards to be worth my effort.

[rags-6094]

Ok there's some great feedback here and the fortune talisman definately make a slow game to complete, I can see now that I do appear to be competitive but I do wonder what happened there.

Since early this year when I finally made that eternal run, I lost my drive to keep going in the arena, so I still played but I became content with top 50 top 100 positions.
During the arena event just gone I managed to complete the 200 and then a few extras that kept me in the top 100 but at one stage being on holiday and everything I had fallen to about the top 5000. Has anyone been down there recently?

I was surprised at some of the quality teams lurking between 5000 and 100, anyway when I eventually worked my way up it seemed much harder than I remember. Usually if I get a good run of wins it seems like I get the start most of the time, if I lose even one battle it's almost a certainty that the defence gets first go. In this current arena who goes first usually wins, particularly where FFE/KP/Prisoner teams are concerned..

I had a theory that relaxing in the lower ranks changes the teams strengths some how, now I think it's nothing more than a perception... but thanks for the feedback everyone!

[Liu]

No, as also these do not fit into my build at the moment

It'd be really helpful if we could see in both arena and gauntlet which tallies are being used on the opposing team. Particularly concerning the upcoming 5-sets it would appear having advanced knowledge will be the only way to counter certain setups.

[Blade]

It'd be really helpful if we could see in both arena and gauntlet which tallies are being used on the opposing team. Particularly concerning the upcoming 5-sets it would appear having advanced knowledge will be the only way to counter certain setups.

Even the old 4-sets like Quake did not even have a symbol during the fights...so I highly doubt that there will be more transparency with these things. Being prepared reduces the chance to fail. That's probably also the reason why everybody gets different enemies in the Gauntlet.

[Muzzleloader]

They will probably never show talisman before you commit to a battle. The way it is you must prepare for all possible combos in the arena and every combo in gauntlet. This makes it more competitive and frustrating at times.

[Stormseye]

They will probably never show talisman before you commit to a battle. The way it is you must prepare for all possible combos in the arena and every combo in gauntlet. This makes it more competitive and frustrating at times.

Agree they will most likely not show talismans but in the Arena anyway you can guess what most people are running for talismans as we all run the same things. Every now and then you will find an Alchemist with Eclipse or Warlord but everything else is on par with everyone else. I treat Guantlet the same way and usually overkill the fight prepping for the Primordial/Fortune/Angel fights.

[wipp]

I have been playing around with the fortune tals all morning and so far furious burn seems to be the best against it

[Stormseye]

Doom from FFE. I use mostly single hitters in my build against Magus Lilliths.

[wipp]

Just tried that stormeye vs blade. I couldnt get it to stick and got another draw

[rags-6094]

Agree they will most likely not show talismans but in the Arena anyway you can guess what most people are running for talismans as we all run the same things. Every now and then you will find an Alchemist with Eclipse or Warlord but everything else is on par with everyone else. I treat Guantlet the same way and usually overkill the fight prepping for the Primordial/Fortune/Angel fights.

That reminds me, during the previous Gauntlet event I noticed that many of the characters I faced seemed to have copied the talisman combinations I have placed on mine.. ok ok I know typical MLillith will have destiny's or fortune but how many people out there have placed avenger on their ancient mariner? There were others too but this one comes to mind now..