Arena

You may know this is a second season, don’t you?
Even I have been in Diamond, I was brought back to wood on the new season.

Yeah arena hasn’t gotten any better, this is a stupid unnecessary manipulation from rovio. I also started few weeks after start arena season 2. And stopped again, after I noticed this.
First few opponents are reasonable, more in line with the actual players who are in that league at that time. Then only fixed opponents and worse thing about that, constantly the same opponents, doesn’t matter what time of the day I played. If you’re (rovio) going to do that, at least make it a 50-50 split (50% fixed, 50% actual) or something. There’s no fun in playing the arena, at least for me. I don’t get that others still find the energy to keep playing this messed up part of the game.

@jim151 I don’t play the arena with my level 45 team. I got to the platinum league in season 1, and that was enough for me. It was simply too much effort to continue playing with a level 45 team. A full 12 week season is just way too long. I also don’t understand why Rovio have now made the battles so hard. I think both of these factors have contributed to a big drop off in numbers playing in the arena.

I do play with my level 19 team, which now has mastery levels of 6 and 7. This is much more enjoyable. There is a big variation in opponents. I play against teams ranging from level 17 to 26, with a range of mastery levels and banners. There are a small number of teams who have mastery ranks of 10, but most have mastery near my level. The battles are also currently more difficult at this level compared to in the past. But I have been able to get to Diamond in the current and the previous season. Also, cheating is not very prevalent at my level.

When the arena started, all the talk was about teams that could do a lot of damage. But when everyone has a similar high damage team, then the winner is often determined by the coin toss. Or by a Wizard waking up, launching a Rage attack and turning the tide of the battle. I have found that moving to a more defensive team and protecting yourself against losing the coin toss is a more effective strategy.

I think the single most valuable banner item is the Blessed head. I have a complete Blessed set, although my Blessed Head is very old (level 15, gold). The other important banner item is the Rage Shield. My banner health is around 4,000, but if I took the items that gave the highest health, my banner health would be up to 5,400. It is well worth sacrificing the banner health to get a good banner. My bird team is Paladin with Protector’s Aura, Druid with Nightmare set and Rogues with Save Me set. So I have a set up that adds health, reduces damage done to my birds, protects against rage attacks and, when I attack, I knock out opponent birds using poisons – which essentially gains you an extra turn. My arena score is 298 and I can frequently defeat teams with scores of 330-350.

@tigerussell also has an effective banner and team – mentioned somewhere on another thread. He has the Frozen set, Rainbird (Reborn), Druid (Nightmare) and Rogues (Save Me). So he uses stuns and poisons to take down opponent birds and has the protection of the revival sets.

In my case, although I still have to do a bit of selecting to get opponents, I am still able to continue to play arena battles. I always do the most difficult objectives first up, as the first few battles are the easiest. Otherwise I just have to substitute birds into my set up to achieve objectives.

Sorry for the essay. I certainly understand your frustration at the current arena and don’t blame you for just dropping it.

The tip to use a high healing/high protection team is a good one. Life became much more enjoyable in Arena once I followed @tigerrussell’s advice (from a separate thread). Of course, you have to play enough to get the Blessed set, which can take a while, and the Mighty set with a critical hit set (e.g., Blues with Ballista, Chuck with Lightning) still give me fits, but it is possible to actually grind through teams without being too concerned about getting flattened.

The thing I find odd about the Arena is the variability on competitiveness of leagues from week to week. Last week, my platinum league required at least 15,000 points per day to remain in the top four (the winner ended with 160,000, and second place had 150,000, the lowest score was in the 30,000’s). This week, it’s looking like around 7,000 points per day will be enough for a high placing (top three), and there are four people who haven’t played at all. Three and four weeks ago it was the same split, where the week three league was insane, and it took a lot of play to not get demoted. Three weeks ago however, you basically just had to fulfill your objectives to get into the top three.

But it is variable, and trying to fulfill objectives can be costly if the game wants you to fight with a bird team (or hat set) you’re not used to using, or do something that is intrinsically difficult (like winning without knocking out a bird). But consider this, if they made all the teams easy getting a high daily score would just be about having enough hours in the day to grind. That, I think, would be even worse because the only way to get separation would be to have gobs of free time.

Does anyone have the Blazing eye set that works? I got it this morning for the first time only to find that it does not endow a 50% increase in rage generation. Thanks.

@tigerussell is yours new? Can you tell me figures for your paladin if you don’t mind. Thanks.

Just checked my figures paladin is supposed to deliver 2554 but with the blazing set 2809 exactly the same as mighty wings set. There should be a difference I believe.

It has occurred to me that perhaps it means regeneration of the chilli is 50% faster. In which case it might work but is disappointing. It’s the one banner I don’t like playing against and therefore I wanted it. Oh well!

@kerravon yes It’s just my interpretation was different. But I usually get it wrong. Thanks.

@tigerussell I finally figured it out. Yes it regenerates very quickly. So I’m giving the banner a whirl. It makes a change and therefore adds a bit of spice. Thanks for replying to such a stupid question.