PvP week 44 thread!

[surfingwithdje]

Hello to all the arena players !

The Nicko's weekly post about arena is a nice tradition since 1 year and it's sad to see it go away, so i take the interim just for this week =)

The new events each week (and the lot of extra farming they need) lead to a lack of time for playing the arena, I noticed that most of us just played their free sow this week...

Finally it's not that bad, we were able to get new characters and many skillshards from sacrifice, and in the arena the ranking was very close at the end of the week! We have seen interessting battles to obtain the desired tier...

Congrats to the guys on the podium, my troopers Carlos and kamuz, mammy for his first and very deserved #3 rank. Congrats to Shaolin and mkultra for their great battle for the #5 rank and also congrats to all the other players i usually meet each week.

About the meta, i think the VHE domination is slowly changing, we start to see more navigator/pharaoh/aces high and FOTD Eddies teeams... I hope to see more tailgunner Eddies after his buff probably this week!
Also the perfect immunity is now use by most of the teams (yellow valkyrie or fate talismants), it's a powerfull effect who can be very annoying paired with the good allies or talismants...
Not yet seen a lot of team using the new droid, his revive and endure skills looks interessting for the arena... still evolving mine we will see how he works =)

A last word for saying a thank you to NF for their 12 days of Christmas event, the free gifts are very welcome, especially the actual expensive arena talismants sets =)
Lets see how can be the last "big" gift !

+++, I let you tell us your feelings about the past week,
See you in the arena,

Dje.

[Nicko]

It's great the way this thread keeps going. Thanks for taking the reigns this week DJE!

And congrats to the Podium - especially Mammy (Hypnos here on the forum) as it's his first (but probably not last) appearance. As I glance at the podium each week there's usually a new name or two which is really cool to see. And of course Kamuz and Carlos continue to play like beasts.

Personally life and a bit of burnout has been getting in the way of any real competitive play for me, but i do manage to squeeze a few matches in each week. And I agree with DJEs observations.

It's great to see other Eddies - not just because they're "there" and we're bored - but because they can be effective. Of course VHE still dominates, but Navigator, Pharaoh, Visions, and Aces High all have skillsets that can make them useful. My attack team rotates VHE, AH, and Pharaoh - but I even have a Magic based team utilizing the Predator talismans with GRE that's really fast - but as a tradeoff that team can lose easier than the others.

With that being said, that then leaves the finger pointing at the other 5* Eddies - Cyborg, Hallowed, Mystic, Shaman, Samurai, and Trooper. I really think the team needs to pick one or two of these for each update and make them relevant. 4* Eddies like Nav and FotD are more useful - and it just shouldn't be that way.

And while Sparton may pipe in and say "Our utilization rates show Cyborg and Shaman are strong" - I'm referring to top 50 or 100. You just don't see Shaman, Hallowed, or Mystic. Trooper, Cyborg and Samurai? Once in a blue moon. And it's usually a "Yes!" moment because 1) It's something different and 2) They go down easier.

Perhaps this is just our lack of creativity as players and there are combos using these guys that are super effective - but there are some pretty smart players at the top and I'm just not seeing it.

I will say the new talismans - especially Fate and Predator - are awesome. It's allowing toons to appear like Purple CotD that can be really scary and we just didn't see before. The Purge were useless because they weren't working right, but after the next update when Purge and Angel are here and working properly things should get even more diverse.

I know Sparton had briefly mentioned before a new competitive game mode that will likely involve a beta. I'm hoping we hear more details of this soon. But it may just be the boost that many of us long-term players need to regenerate some excitement.

And as DJE mentioned - 12 Days of Christmas has been very cool so many thanks to the development team. Awaiting the arrival of the Three Kings...

[PerthEddie]

especially Mammy (Hypnos here on the forum) as it's his first (but probably not last) appearance

Is he still playing then? He removed me as a Trooper last week (might have been week before) despite getting badges from me every day. I just assumed he was either going casual and scaling back on Troopers or quitting the game altogether. Ah well :-/

Congrats to all on the podium last week

[Askora]

Thanks DJE for starting the thread. Always enjoy the weekly review.

Congrats to Carlos, Kamuz and Mammy on podium. Congrats to everyone else who continues to stick it out.

I agree that there is a little more variety in PvP, but vhe is still the dominant Eddie. He continues to make up at least half of my attack and defense tabs. So, still more variety needed. On a positive note, it seems like play was not quite as sluggish. Think it's mostly attributable to defenses evolving and becoming more aggressive. Definitely a nice change as the slower teams do little to change the outcome, just make it take longer.

I've really started to rely on the 3 tabs for offense as the variety of defenses has made it a greater necessity. Downside is that top players can still have insane win rates. Mine was a little below par last week and only about 93%. The reason I mention it, is I still think the 'fog of war' or blind offense for the top 50 or 100 should be a thing. I know there are a lot who disagree, but I think it's because they'd rather keep their high win rate and then complain there is no challenge.

Other things. Enjoying the Christmas events and happy with what coalgiver has brought so far. Events have been better and better paced I think. Play time for me has been a bit short as I've been working on my version of a lotb companion resource site. Recently started trying to collaborate on it with ancient mariner and still quite a ways to go. My version, which is not complete and has no functionality yet is at http://lotb.epizy.com. Anyone who cares to check it out is more than welcome to. I'd appreciate any feedback as to navigation, features you'd like to see, etc. I'm not in my element on this project and learning as I go, so bear with me. Hopefully will have a little functionality soon and more to follow. I'd share am's version but his is more just a static page and up to him on sharing it. His url is better, so it may be the final destination for the combined effort.

[slauki]

thanks for maintaining these thread. it's always a nice place to talk about actual issues and developments.

congrats to carlos, kamuz and mammy for a great performance.

i feel arena is kinda dead and the competition is really low. i took some days off from pvp and started on wendsday evening. still managed top 50 without much effort and without refills. i honestly think top 50 rewards are better than top 25 rewards, because NF still overvalues the g/a souls.

all in all it seems that only a few guys refill at all.

i see the several reasons for this:

1. it takes so much time to play all sow, why the hell would we want to refill just to play even more?
2. the rewards for top ranks are kinda crapish (events provide much more action, which proves my point)
3. despite the increased variety of toons, pvp is getting old pretty soon

still pvp and the new events are what keep the game kinda fresh, despite the lack of new content. i really hope we will see some innovations with the "unanounced game mode" but if they introduce a 3rd option to play, which takes two more hours every day, we will see much more "goodbye troopers" threads. so maybe this new game more will replace pvp, but who knows. the time issue has to be solved in some way, that's the most important part for many longterm guys.

and yeah: 12 presents for christmas are really nice

[Peppoah]

I feel a bit disappointed about my 12th place, because alphabetical order kept me away from 10th place. Rank 10, 11 and 12 are equal and I get rank 12, because my nick doesn’t start with an A, sucks.
Anyway, that was my best result, so far.
Congrats to the top 3

[surfingwithdje]

I feel a bit disappointed about my 12th place, because alphabetical order kept me away from 10th place. Rank 10, 11 and 12 are equal and I get rank 12, because my nick doesn’t start with an A, sucks.
Anyway, that was my best result, so far.
Congrats to the top 3

The ranking was very close, you were 3 with the same points number at the #10 rank!
There is a tie, you should have the #10 rank rewards... maybe can you ask the support about that ?

Ps: thanks Nicko it's great to see you here
Askora your lotb ressource site looks very nice, it's promising! I will take a look from times to times for seeing the progress

[Peppoah]

Thank you, dje. I’ll try it and give you my feedback later.