[mich]

@smwforever45 There are two easy ways to do this achievement. One is to grind hard on the first day of a week in Diamond to make sure you are on top (it helps if you can actually do all of the achievements). This takes some work, but has a pretty decent chance of working out. The other option is to start late into the week (Wednesday or Thursday) and hope for an easy board. This works often, but there is a risk of falling back to Platinum if you hit an active board.

[mich]

@smwforever45 The achievement in Game Center is ulocked when you make it to rank 1 on Diamond – it is not necessary to actually finish the week (or even the season) on rank 1 – at least it was like that back in the first arena season, when I got mine.

[mich]

@angryde I suppose once you are over 10,000, competition will dwindle. A lot of people seem to be only playing for the Elite Cleric.

[mich]

@redbird-justin Lighning Bird is great against bosses because you can use him to make the highest damage bird attack again.

[mich]

No access to the leaderboard here either.

[mich]

@Yoshi That sounds fun, but I wouldn’t call it fast. My fastest battles against equal power opponents consist of two turns, with no opponent action in between because all his birds are knocked out. My Spies with Ballista do over 10,000 damage when they do a critical hit, they’re buffed by Cap’n and the banner is debuffed by Thunderbird. Two or three hits like that, plus the other Birds’ damage, and the battle is over. Of course, it depends on luck, but with a banner with +crit chance, it does happen quite often.

[mich]

I’m not quite ready to quit yet, but I’m close, for very similar reasons. I’m out of the arena game, and I won’t be grinding for mastery anymore. I might still raise my birds to level 60 (I have so many Exp potions that it won’t take that long), I will keep collecting the daily Bonus, and I will most likely play the Elite class events. In other words, I still want to collect the new stuff, but with minimum effort.

[mich]

I can only see the Elite updates for Thunderbird and Skulkers for 90 LC each, even though I own all classes. I got a teaser that this was a special offer, so I bought the Thunderbird for 90, thinking that this was the special offer. I can still buy Elite Thunderbird even though I already own it.

[mich]

I spent 150 LC and rolled about 12-15 set items. Not a bad ratio, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a single new item, and only one of the duplicates was slightly better than the version I already had. At least I got some shards out of scrapping duplicates (especially since I scrapped the old versions of the items, most of which were still worth 6 shards instead 1), but just buying shards would have been a better deal…

[mich]

I finished 2nd in Diamond – wasn’t able to spin 10 shards though. Those friendship essences have become pretty hard to come by without any active friends.

[mich]

If your Red is strong and Bomb is weak, consider using Cap’n for Bomb and buff Red to make him even stronger. Spies are great for Blues if you need splash damage, Rogues if you want damage over time (useful for Ninjas). So I, too, believe you don’t need premium classes for Blues and Bomb.

I would really recommend the Paladin to you. As value for money goes, it’s easily the best premium class there is. There is also a great strategy for many cave levels that involves Paladin: Take Pigiana and either Princess (if Paladin has higher health than Pigiana and Princess) or Rogues. Use Pigiana to keep Paladin buffed always, and use Princess or Rogues to make all opponents target Paladin. Because of Pigiana’s buff, Paladin will retaliate for every opponent’s attack, healing himself again. This strategy works best for cave levels with many low-damage opponents.

[mich]

Arena has definitely become easier since Valiant’s effect has been disabled for opponent’s teams.

[mich]

If the new upgrades are like the old ones, they will preserve the mastery levels of the previous class.

Since in my opinion, the Knight is the most useless class in the whole game, let’s hope the Elite Knight will be a real improvement. Ronin’s 10% more attack and health are not enough.

[mich]

@graugeist I’ve seen both scenarios – joining late to find an extremely competetive board of players that have all started on the first day, as well as boards with only one or two semi-active players, and taking first place with around 10 to 15k. I have only once been demoted because of joining late (from Diamond to Platinum) – usually even on an active board, one star is feasible if you join late.

[mich]

It will be interesting to see if the new class upgrades are handled like the old class upgrades (like Ronin, Archmage, Moon Priestess, …), or if there is a difference. And if they’re like the old ones, will the new Elite Knight replace Ronin for those who have him?

[mich]

@chuntsen I am going to give you a slighty unpopular tip: Start spending your lucky coins on the pig machine (preferably during a 5x riot). If you have been playing regularly for two months, you will have collected quite an amount by now. My advice is: Don’t save them up for when your birds are Level 50. Sure, you will receive items that are useful for a very limited time, but decent gear makes it so much easier to advance in the game. And, once you reach Level 50, you can scrap all the lower level set items you got this way for shards, which in turn you can use to upgrade your new set items.

[mich]

@mvnla2 Don’t worry, it will appear. Back when Red’s Stone Guard was released, I had all previous classes at Level 10 (max), and did not see any mastery on the wheel. Once I got the Stone Guard, Red and All Birds appeared.

[mich]

Untouchable is another skill that counters Venomous, which is becoming increasingly dangerous to use. Other than that, I see the Trasure Hunters as a purely PvM class. It will probably be very SRC-friendly, against all those pigs with charged attacks (especially WizPig).

[mich]

@poptimus
Sorry to hear that. I’m in 1st with 15k on Diamond – it really helps to start the arena week on Tuesday instead of Sunday – all the competitive players are already gone by then. As a bonus, I already received 8 Shards instead of 5 from the Platinum wheel, because I spun after the update.

[mich]

@angryde My go-to team for the arena remains Spies w/ Ballista Set, Cap’n and Thunderbird, with a Banner set that increases damage and critical hit chance (e.g. Mighty or Sinister). With Cap’n’s buff and Thunderbird’s debuff, my (maxed out) spies crit for over 9000 damage. This team is good against any (literally any) team with a similar power rating. If opponent’s power is >200 points higher, there is a chance of losing, so I avoid those. With the golden chili and a bit of luck on the coin spin, it is even possible to win before the opponent’s first turn.

For a longer description, see my post in the arena power combos thread: https://www.angrybirdsnest.com/forums/topic/the-ultimate-guide-to-arena-power-combos/#post-97195

[mich]

Has anyone had any luck opening the event status screen yet? I would like to know what’s on the wheel, but when I tried, it only showed different quantities of wood all over the wheel and the game crashed.

[mich]

Regarding the missing ingredients: There was recently a completely unrelated event in a completely different free-to-play game, in which you could gather some sort of currency in order to win a prize. Sound familiar? They did one thing differently though: While the prize was offered for premium currency after the event for those who did not get enough ingredients, it was discounted for those players that had participated, roughly proportional to the percentage of ingredients they had. I thought that was a really nice touch, and it would certainly be nice if Rovio could do the same next time around, and sell the new class for, let’s say, 3LC per missing ingredient. If you haven’t played, you pay full price. If you did, you pay less.

[mich]

@mvnla2 There is always Bluestacks…

[mich]

@mvnla2 I rarely combined Sonic and Chuck during the event. I attacked the strongest opponent with Sonic, and if it was still the strongest after the attack, I fed the chili to Red. I buffed Red with Cap’n before that, but you can also further debuff the strongest opponent like @whiteasice described.

[mich]

@fertal I see the same changes. I also earned a wood trophy for season 7, which of course has no graphic assigned.