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  1. #71
    Senior Member Stormseye's Avatar
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    There is a definite change in the AI this week as Alex has learned to strike first before his allies to ensure they are free of negative effects and managed to not heal when crave is present on the team. I am waiting until the Awakening 3 launches before I post full disclosure on the AI in the game but the subtle changes are noticeable and certain team builds will need to be adjusted if they wish to remain the best option.
    ...When all you see can only bring you sadness...

    ...no Brave New World...no Brave New World...

    The LAST player in the top end to get Primordials (TM)

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  2. #72
    Senior Member Stormseye's Avatar
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    Greetings Troopers,

    I realize it has been several months since my last update. Some of this delay is in part to personal time constraints and some of it is because the development team has taken a, much appreciated, focus on communicating the current state of the Arena via Updates from Space Station 5. I apologize in advance for the length as there was more information than I expected.

    That being said, I wanted to toss in my perspective on what has been happening in the top end of the much debated, Arena of Anger.

    A woman scorned….

    Dark Lilith - Though the Lords of Light still hold court on some teams (including mine) They have all but disappeared from the top teams. Dark Lilith, however, continues to bring her mighty power of Perfect Disable to the fight and with the addition of some interesting ally assistance she can be the thorn that does not go away. She can carry an assortment of talisman combinations, none of which are a detriment. Sacred, Serenity, Cosmic Echo, Warlord and Inspiration are the more common sets, but she leaves nothing to waste in terms of utility. Inspiration and Cosmic Echo tend to be the quite effective for inflicting Perfect Disable on the first turn. Her power moves can pull your team back into the fray and grant them all a chance for an extra turn.

    Somewhere in Eternity…

    As far of the Eddies go, the predominate trio are Cyborg, Bounty Hunter and Eternal Champion Eddie. There are others notable Eddies such as Van Helsing and Oni but these are few and far between in the top 25.

    Cyborg (max awakened) – By the far the most common Ed, leads his charge with a passive ability that is incredibly powerful. Once he reaches 1hp he will revive his whole party and grant them all a host of beneficial effects including echo. In addition, he will inflict 6 hits of random damage to random enemies with every action and it cannot be avoided. With very little variance in talisman setup, he will be wearing Sacred/Serenity and his proprietary T3 Comic.

    Bounty Hunter Eddie – While he lacks the passive and fury of his predecessor he still offers a unique tidbit in place. His passive stuns a single opponent for the duration of the battle which basically forces the opponent to battle with only 3 members. Passive Disable or revive is the only cure. The former is a feat not easily accomplished considering his passive also reduces the trigger chance of all enemy skill effects that are not 100% by 75%. He also steals 3 power and 30% fury with every action. His talisman setup is the same as Cyborg so silver effects will be of no consequence.

    Eternal Champion Eddie – Freshly reskinned and updated, this Ed has been a surprise against many players including myself. He is one of the easier Eddies to obtain and comes ready to use out of the box. While his basic abilities mirror the original version, his fury has been replaced by a passive which supports his team on every front. First, he is immune to True damage and he is granted Perfect Immunity for the duration of the battle. He also reduces his damage taken by 50% and reflects back 100% of the remaining 50% as random damage to each enemy and inflicts a random negative effect whenever he takes damage. Second, he grants a random ally (not including himself) an extra turn with every action and third, he will steal a random golden effect from each enemy and steal all beneficial effects from a random enemy with every action. His most common talisman setups are Yin/Yang and Quantum but I have seen Warlord on him to some very damaging effect.

    Di’Anno Dynamic Duo…

    Wrathchild – Though he was strong when he first arrived, he was recently given another boost which propelled him in 80% of the top teams. With little debate, Wrathchild is one of the best utility allies in the arena right now. From inflicting Marks and Crave to removing negative effects and granting extra turns to reducing all damage taken by all allies and reflecting it back to all enemies, he is a total package. That is all done without talismans! Now add to that a Valhalla talisman set and you have an ally that will revive your team AND himself over and over and grant them Perfect Heal Shield and Endure for the duration of the battle. On occasion you will find him wearing Yin/Yang but among the top teams Valhalla is his mainstay.

    The Killer – Passive Disable still remains the most misunderstood feature in the game and The Killer is no exception. It this reason that The Killer makes his way into the top end of the Arena. His power and passive abilities both involve Disable Passive functions. Which can cause your team to be stifled from any passive benefits you may be leaning on. The other reason he has inserted himself into many top teams is his ability to wear the Forge talisman set. The set has many functions but the key is the ability to grant Perfect heal Shield and Cleanse to all allies for the duration of the battle if any ally’s health reaches 1hp. It is rare to see him with any other talismans.

    One last consideration of these two allies is that when combined with Cyborg Eddie they can produce a vicious cycle of reviving and cleansing that will leave you dizzy at the amount of infinite duration beneficial effects they can generate with little to no effort on their part. All the passives and talismans work with incredible synergy. It is this synergy that makes this the team the most popular setup in the top end.

    Hear the Mandrake Scream….

    Moonchild – Unless you just started this game two days ago, you well know the Moonchild has caused a shift in the current arena game unlike any other. He is all but essential in any top team right now. Immune to all negative and beneficial effects (with the exception of passive disable at the start of the battle only), Moonchild has become a staple in 95% of the top teams. His endurance comes from his ability to wear the Labyrinth talisman set. His basic and power moves are not without merit as he can Stun and Doom as well as inflict Passive Disable with his power move. All the while avoiding any negative effects an enemy may throw at him. Though his passive was recently curtailed, he still has 7 rounds to limit opponents from using any power and fury moves as well as requiring all attacks be perfect or miss entirely. He is most commonly found wearing either Cosmic Echo or Cosmic Vamp with his Labyrinth set. The latter of these can be quite frustrating.

    Of Gods and Gimps…

    Though recently added to some top team rosters, the newly awakened Prisoner and Horus are of note but have yet to make a proper claim in the high stakes arena and with certain features not functioning properly I cannot make any accurate commentary on their impact so let’s leave this space blank for the time being….

    Pay the Devil his due…..

    The Beast – Not to be outdone by Moonchild, The Beast has been the epicenter of contention of all manner of players, not just the upper echelon of Arenites. After it was recently discovered to have an ultimate combination resulting in the Beast attacking a multitude of times. The Lantern/Warlord talisman sets lifted the Beast from novelty to the ultimate terror in the Arena. I will stray from my usual perspective to a more personal experience as it has been brought up by some players that the use of this combination was “lame”, “weak” and “cheating”. What happened with this combination is an issue that plagues game designers across all games. It is an impossible foresight to see what players will come up with in terms of combinations of skills and abilities and in this case talismans, that they can create monsters of unintended design.

    In my limited usage of the Beast early in the arena week as an Attack team, I did not experience any “infinite” loops nor did the game ever lock and require me to force start. What I did see is that once The Beast would kill an enemy or any of the above mentioned allies would revive and/or heal/cleanse themselves, The Beast would ceases his onslaught of attacks. The next turn you could start the cycle again, but it would always stop once revive/heal/cleanse activated. Against Cyborg teams this combo was rather futile because once Cyborg reached 1hp he would revive the party and eventually the Beast would die from Doom or damage. The success I had were more against Ed Champion teams but due to his immunity to True damage (which the Beast deals), it was also limited to the ability to place Passive Disable on the Ed Champion. Of my 365 victories I would say less than 30 of those were a result of using the Beast on attack. The remaining wins came from my Doom Boom and subsequently the new Pharaoh Dog King builds after the patch on Thursday.

    In terms of allegations of racking up “free wins” from the use of The Beast in my defense team. I present to you the cold hard facts of numbers. In the below video you will see my rating pre-patch as 34/113. This means only 34 wins were garnered via The Beast in defense with 113 losses showing that teams were more than able to defeat the defense. As mentioned by another player “the purpose of a defense team is to defend”. Some of the players were not around when Iron Eddie was raining down Fury every turn, when Killer Prime was going “infinite” turns with Greed/Warlord, when Magus Lillith was “swinging 7 or 8 times”, when Clansman Eddie was granting extra turns over and over, when Eternity Eddie was cycling Sekhmet to fury over and over. These are the hurdles that designers have to endure and correct. The community is there to support that and give the feedback necessary to facilitate the changes. They may be slow but eventually do come.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3YD8p6gPRY

    I also feel that no one needs to justify their defense or any other aspect of their play style to anyone more especially to members of what is supposed to be a supportive community. This game is played, for all intents and purposes, as a solo game. We are all playing against the AI. Anyone who has ever accomplished the task of standing on the podium will tell you that defense wins did not put them there. The way to reach the podium is through offensive wins and time. Pure and simple.

    So now how do you handle these behemoths of battle?....

    The list of viable counter characters has grown against the slow expanding of diversity within the top teams. We have now moved from a power 4/6 characters within all teams to an 8/10 range of differing enemies.
    What does seem to still hold steady against these teams is negative effects and same turn combinations. Options like Stun, Freeze and Sleep still work since Alchemy talismans have all but left the top teams. Crave but not Perfect Crave is also a great killer of high health regenerating teams. Silver effects are mostly out due to Serenity talismans abounding with the exception of Doom/Dark ghost. One of the biggest assets to have in your arsenal is protection from passive Disable and the ability to inflict passive Disable yourself. This protection is most commonly done via Singularity talismans and/or the ability to cleanse your team or negative effects.

    Examples of same turn combination include inflicting Doom/Dark ghost and utilizing an ally that can remove effects like Gunner Krampus or The Killer or Magus Lord of Light. Inflicting Crave and then hitting an enemy that has heal shields will result them healing themselves to death. Given the amount of passive abilities and skills presented in defense. Patience and timing are also going to be your strengths to overcome these battles. Sometimes missing an attack on purpose due to Moonchild passive is the right thing to do until the heal shield has faded on the opponent. Moving the game play from x3 to x2 may help you hit Perfect with more frequency.

    Below is the team I used the most in my run this week in the Arena. This build focused mainly on inflicting Doom/Dark Ghost and then using Magus Lord of Light to set it off.

    Madam Fortune – Valhalla/Cosmic Redemption or Cosmic Serenity – Hopefully this ally makes her way to the Heroic rotation soon as her skills were key to this build. Her passive inflicts passive disable/perfect disable across the board to any enemy not protected by immunity first turn. The Redemption talisman helps remove 2 effects at the start of the battle. Sadly, I was unable to take advantage of her healing because of the talisman choices. But she does heal all allies for 50% of Max if she is vanished at the start of the turn. Next her basic attack deals 1 hit random and 1 true to all enemies, removes all negative effects including silver from one ally and inflicts Crave/Perfect Crave but most importantly inflicts doom on anyone inflicted with Passive/Perfect Disable or Crave/Perfect Crave. This means first turn Doom on some enemies. This also means that Moonchild can have passive disable on him at the start of the battle and allow you to use power abilities.

    Cyborg/BHE – Serenity/Sacred/T3 – As explained above these two eddies are great support and damage in your team. No need to expand further as to what they bring to the team. For the purpose of this build though his key function is to generate power via his Tase basic attack. You need power to active Magus LoL

    Magus Lord of Light – The second key in this build. Not only can he carry the much needed, Singularity set to keep your team safe from Passive Disable, his power move also instantly kills any target with Doom/Dark Ghost. This prevents them from being revived by any means and there are many.

    Moonchild – He has become staple of all top teams and with good reason. Though with recent changes he may finally become less of a requirement and this is not entirely a bad thing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHQJH12H7zQ

    Cheers to all and see you in the Arena!
    Last edited by Stormseye; 02-03-2020 at 08:35 PM.
    ...When all you see can only bring you sadness...

    ...no Brave New World...no Brave New World...

    The LAST player in the top end to get Primordials (TM)

    Proud member of JomsVikings' Arena Research Lab (JARL)

    stormseye-8121

  3. #73
    Senior Member infinite dreamer's Avatar
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    Thank you, excellent analysis as usual Stormseye!
    bob-9503 (playing daily, thank you to all my troopers and clan members in Jomsvikings!)

  4. #74
    Senior Member Esquatcho's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stormseye View Post
    Cheers to all and see you in the Arena!
    How this hasnt taken off in comments is beyond me. You are a bastion of sage advice my friend. A true guru of the game!
    Gringo-4930
    MOFO

    Currently grinding for:
    Odin(s) - Freya - Scrooge (Slauki) Ed / Moar Yggs

  5. #75
    Senior Member Beddie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Esquatcho View Post
    How this hasnt taken off in comments is beyond me. You are a bastion of sage advice my friend. A true guru of the game!
    Yeah, it’s a great summary of the previous year of PvP from a simple perspective
    Proud member of Jomsvikings/ A Part-Time Clairvoyant

  6. #76
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    As a newer player, I really appreciated reading this, including putting the Beast "bug" into perspective and giving some stats on that. I had also asked others to give good examples of some of these other bugs (which I defined as unintended consequences in a software program) and did not get responses, but you have listed a number of them. I do think that those would could beat the Beast attacked you, and that many avoided you merely because of the Beast bug, so those stats do not necessarily prove the point. But I'm getting off topic.
    You are really knowledgeable in the game, and it is nice that you have shared your knowledge base with the rest of us. I will say that you've left one Eddie off your list that I have seen on a number of teams (even if Cyborg teams now dominate)--Van Helsing Eddie because he can wear Forge and he can heal and clear doom. That makes him good on an offense team, although maybe not as good on a defensive team. And yes Lilith continues to be the most explosively unpredictable (in the way that Major Malakhov can be). Thanks again!

  7. #77
    Senior Member Maiden's Avatar
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    Thanks a lot for work Stormseye! I really missed your posts here, so nice to read you again!

    How do you work around against a Max Cyborg (with their classic Serenity/Sacred/T3)? I´ve been trying crave but I have the strange feeling that crave is not doing enough dmg in relation to the healing received. Also Hierophant Gunner, but I can´t make him survive long enough no matter whats talisman on him... finally the only option that sometimes works for me are heavy hitters plus passive disable... could you expand your thoughts about strategies against him?

    See you in Arena! (finally I've been ranking high enough to see you yeeey.. I never win of course :P )
    "Is it me or is it shadows that are dancing on the walls"

  8. #78
    Senior Member Stormseye's Avatar
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    Cyborg can be tough for sure but Crave and most recently Marks have really helped me overcome him. The update to Moonchild also helps make Cyborgs easier to deal with but you need to consider Musashi now before you can deal with Cyborg. Once Musashi is down you need to focus on timing and hitting perfect and missing purposely. Usually I try and kill all allies leaving Cyborg and Moonchild standing.

    So depending on what attack team I am using. If I have Madam Fortune in then my focus is to put Crave on Cyborg. Yes it is bugged in that he will heal through the hits but if you time the attack to make sure that he does not have his heal shield up then it will kill him. Another thing to try and keep him stunned. Usually this is done via Moonchild. You also need to keep Passive Disable on him at all times because if he drops to 1hp his passive will revive his allies. As noted Marks also help overcome his healing and I accomplish this by using the Mark Cosmic talisman. You usually need to have at least 3 sets on him or he will just heal through unless you have Crave on him too.

    Another tactic to use once you can use your own power moves, either through the use of Pharaoh King Dog or after 7 rounds and Moonchild's passive has expired, is to use Cyborg's Beam Attack and Calibrate skills. Remember that Max awoken Cyborg will deal 6 hits of damage to random enemies with every action. Most of the time Calibrate will not trigger the Sacred talismans and allows you an extra turn. The key again is to keep Cyborg stunned as much as possible. Beam Attack is great in that it will lower his Max Hp and Special for the duration of the battle. Of course if he gets loose and has a chance to fury it will return to normal levels.

    There are other Eddie's and allies that help deal with Cyborg and my Clansman and I have been working on builds but they are all still in the experimental phase. Maybe in the next update.
    ...When all you see can only bring you sadness...

    ...no Brave New World...no Brave New World...

    The LAST player in the top end to get Primordials (TM)

    Proud member of JomsVikings' Arena Research Lab (JARL)

    stormseye-8121

  9. #79
    Senior Member Maiden's Avatar
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    Amazing mate, thank you so much! I´ve trying marks a lot recently, its an oversighted effect sometimes but they are really powerful...Wrathchild with mark talis plus his passive it's maybe key to work further.

    Again thanks for sharing so much, truly appreciated!
    "Is it me or is it shadows that are dancing on the walls"

  10. #80
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    Stormseye, you have NO idea how many of my questions you answered in a single post! I haven't been messing around in Arena much, but I had a helluva month in January, getting Gambler Eddie, Angel Eddie, and FFE along with a host of valuable toons so I decided to see what I could do. You, my friend, saved me a ton of time and SoWs.

    Cheers!
    The EXORCISTS Clan
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