UpRauthma said:

My team is built to basically counter your team (since that's so common). I actually get happy when I see those Kael combo teams pop up because if they aren't fast enough I'll have Kael out of the fight before he can nuke. If they are faster but Kael isn't strong enough to get through my shield then I get rid of him and the rest are too weak to finish me off. If they have apocethary instead of HK I have a harder time. Just depends how geared up they are.

But those aren't the teams I'm seeing very often these days. It's mostly combos of fully decked out legendaries and niche epics that I can't hope to compete with.

And it gets worse every day. I have made it to Silver 1  a few times. Never for long. I've managed to get 4 silver medals from lucky refreshes of de-rankers or mid Bronze 4 teams. 

Over the last two days I'm struggling just to stay in Bronze 4.

It's not just inactive accounts. It's account inflation too. Because there is no relationship between power level and bracket, someone essentially has to lose rank for you to gain anything. At this point there is just too much power competing for the low brackets.

They should set the brackets as a combination of defense power level and wins, so if your account has X amount of power, once you cross the threshold for a particular bracket set, you can't go back down unless your account gets removed for inactivity. Then if you come back it's easy to rank back up. They should also skew the points ratio of win/loss so you don't get hurt so bad my superior breaks hammering your defense.

Lots of things they can do to remedy the situation.

I am just curious, to anyone that is in this thread, what is your arena team, and where in arena are you now? Just wanted to see what kind of team are in what tier now

I'll go first

I am at the middle of Bronze 4, have broken to Silver 1 a couple of times, only got 2 silver medals to show for it, usually hanging at 1250 points

My team 87k power

Leader Doompriest lvl 50, 5* ascended T2 masteries

Skullcrusher, lvl 50, 5* ascended no masteries

Athel, lvl 60, 60* ascended, full masteries

Jizoh lvl 60, 6* ascended, full masteries

Trips said:

Ozz- who else do you have.  Skullcrusher is great to build an arena team around. I just don't think you have great synergy with that 4.

Myv goal for that team is

1. Doompriest do an attack up for all ally 

2. Skullcrusher do counter attack for all ally

3. Let opponent nuke and have everyone counter attack

4. Athel soften everybody with her AoE

5. Jizoh finish up

Not an ideal setup I understand, I got other good heroes for Arena, but I'm not really in a hurry to "win" there...

Can you help me put pics here? So I don't have to list everyone of my epics and rares?

OzzLee said:

I am just curious, to anyone that is in this thread, what is your arena team, and where in arena are you now? Just wanted to see what kind of team are in what tier now

Main: gold 1 now, was gold 2 but dropped at the reset and still trying to get back. Not exactly a typical team. 

Lord Shazar

Sethallia

Stag Knight

Tayrel, sometimes Maneater or Mountain King depending on the opponent

Alt: bronze 3, sometimes briefly 4. Classic speed nuke, but not very good gear yet and speed only in the 160-170 range. 

Apo 50

Spirithost 40

Warmaiden 50

Kael 60 full masteries

Started 2 accounts one is at 120 days and the other at 108

Before this week the first was G4

Gorgo 244 speed

Apoth 276 

Basilius at 190 

Rotos 167

This set up was good for bottom end G4 but I felt it slipping and it was getting harder and harder to win.

Finished my missions this week so I’ve now upgraded to arbiter and geared out a serris.

Will now have 

Arbiter 306

Serris 240

Nethril 220

Rotos 167

Second account is G4

Hege

Sethallia 230

Franky 190

Rhazin 174

Both these account benefited from the battle pass being around when I started and I had both in G4 within 50 days.

I’d find it nigh impossible to that now, there’s been a clear rise in difficulty and speed requirement which will continue to get worse. Glad to hear they are somewhat addressing it but it’s still a worry given how quickly this company has been proven to act.

I genuinely feel for anyone just starting out, would be completely demoralising and suck the fun out of the game being stuck at a sliver or bronze mission.

From playing around with speeds and droppping into Gold 2 with my original account I’d say the speed requirement for gold 3 and bottom G4 with a gorgo lead is around 260 to go first, you’ll generally need a second booster as most teams you’ll come across have better champs with bigger boosts. This will continue to rise though as everyone try’s to push for the same goals, easy answer would be to expand the tiers to encompass more players but that’s not really addressing the power creep and it will probably have to be adjusted again in future.

The arena missions need to go, they’re simply not viable for the majority of players anymore and given they’re the driving force behind advancing in the game all it is doing is discouraging new players from continuing. 

The arena missions need to go, they’re simply not viable for the majority of players anymore and given they’re the driving force behind advancing in the game all it is doing is discouraging new players from continuing. 

I'm running:

Jinglehunter 6* 

Seeker 5*

Miscreated Monster 6*

Errol 6*

My biggest issue is gear. I just don't have the dungeon teams built yet that can reliably farm gear that's competitive with what I'm getting matched with in arena. 

I did pull Maneater yesterday, so I'll work on him.

liampeart7 said:

The arena missions need to go, they’re simply not viable for the majority of players anymore and given they’re the driving force behind advancing in the game all it is doing is discouraging new players from continuing. 

It's not just the missions though. GH will eventually discourage players too. It would be nice if Arena wasn't required at all, offered no bonuses other than gear or tourney rewards, and could be disregarded as a mini-game for the whales to flex on each other.

Unfortunately it's a pretty major part of the daily game. 

Rauthma said:

It's not just the missions though. GH will eventually discourage players too. It would be nice if Arena wasn't required at all, offered no bonuses other than gear or tourney rewards, and could be disregarded as a mini-game for the whales to flex on each other.

Unfortunately it's a pretty major part of the daily game. 

Plarium would be fools no to address it soon.

Let's be fair though, PvP in any freemium mobile game is the main driving point for people to start pouring cash.

It's not that it's bad, I mean these game companies need to make money,  but the problem for Plarium is that their Arena system doesn't account for people dropping ranking either intentionally or unintentionally.

I don't know either about "the day of the glitch" when people suddenly struggling to maintain their gold and silver ranking, but whatever happened it destroyed Bronze Tier, I say bronze because this is the entry point for new players, if Plarium wanted to make money at the very least this tier has to be protected, it's like planting seed, you can't expect your seed to suddenly bear fruit! Give them too much fertilizer when they're just germinating would easily kill any seed and you won't see them at the stage where they can grow fruit.

Plarium put these new players against more accomplished accounts hoping for then to be motivated to splash some cash, but doing that so early in the game actually will demolished any hope for them to pay anything, they'd be more discouraged more than anything, because the gap is too big to be closed with responsible spending.

So I get what Plarium is trying to do, but they're just wrong in the implementation, too fast, too soon.

Rauthma said:

I'm running:

Jinglehunter 6* 

Seeker 5*

Miscreated Monster 6*

Errol 6*

My biggest issue is gear. I just don't have the dungeon teams built yet that can reliably farm gear that's competitive with what I'm getting matched with in arena. 

I did pull Maneater yesterday, so I'll work on him.

Did I mention how much I hate speed's role in arena?

What is speed order of team? 

Trips said:

Ozz- who else do you have.  Skullcrusher is great to build an arena team around. I just don't think you have great synergy with that 4.

Myv goal for that team is

1. Doompriest do an attack up for all ally 

2. Skullcrusher do counter attack for all ally

3. Let opponent nuke and have everyone counter attack

4. Athel soften everybody with her AoE

5. Jizoh finish up

Not an ideal setup I understand, I got other good heroes for Arena, but I'm not really in a hurry to "win" there...

Can you help me put pics here? So I don't have to list everyone of my epics and rares?

Trips said:

Rauthma said:

I'm running:

Jinglehunter 6* 

Seeker 5*

Miscreated Monster 6*

Errol 6*

My biggest issue is gear. I just don't have the dungeon teams built yet that can reliably farm gear that's competitive with what I'm getting matched with in arena. 

I did pull Maneater yesterday, so I'll work on him.

Did I mention how much I hate speed's role in arena?

What is speed order of team? 

Any other 6*?

Seeker is the only one with a semi-competitive speed (201). Jingle (lead slot for aura) goes next, followed by Errol. MM is kind of gimped in that I run him with a shield set (not a great one at that but it favors HP stats). The shield set on MM usually spares my team from faster nuke teams. Errol can 1-shot the other team's nuker or Gorgorab most of the time.

I don't have any other 6* champs at the moment, but I have the following 5* I am contemplating making 6* when I muster the patience to full-on grind for it:

Steelskull - not really an arena champ, but he's great in CB

Basilisk - I love Lizardmen. I really want to build this guy out, but without really good gear he's kind of underwhelming.

Seeker - as mentioned above, he's my first attack. He's a 1-trick pony so I really don't think he's worth getting to 6*

Apothecary - Obviously this guy has a ton of use. I use him in dungeon/CB a lot - so it's really tempting to 6* him, even if I don't settle on using him in Arena.

Galek - my starter champ. I got him to 5* before I got some of my other pulls. His gear is pretty "meh" and I just don't feel he's going to do much more for me with some of the other options I have.

Jizoh - 5* him before I had a lot of my other pulls. I really like this guy in PvE. I've gone against some fully built ones in the arena that ultimately resulted in a stalemate loss against my MM because my MM just couldn't overcome the regen (they couldn't take him down either - sigh - I hate stalemates and wish they had a mechanic to just neutralize the points instead of forcing an offensive loss). Don't think I'll 6* him unless I run out of others to invest in and want to keep chugging on Faction crypts.

Fenax - one of my earlier epic pulls. His kit is OK, but with my current gear limitations he's just too squishy. Maybe some day if they make books more accessible I might try him out, but right now I don't think he's the one.

Seeker probably serves you well enough at 5*, you are correct that he is one trick pony.  Apo a better 6* for sure even if you don't use in arena.  Errol's problem is no AOE and to maximize JH you need him to go last so he freezes team after 1st round.  

Seeker (boost and atk up)

WM (def down)

MM (Stun and hopefully weaken someone enough for JH to kill)

JH (Kill one and freeze rest)

Now entire team gets to go again, as everone is stunned or frozen!

Or keep Errol and go:

Seeker (look for substats to get seeker faster, any 4* rare speed on top row of artificats with a double roll) 

MM (ACC)

Errol

JH (ACC & ATK & Speed obv)

If MM gets someone low, let JH kill instead of Errol for the freeze.  Then JH uses TM reduction in R2 and you may get 3 turns lol.  The Evil Eye mastery is great for Arena (Its tier 4 in support).  Using A1s in rd2 helps get u a 3rd round before enemy gets 1!

I have no TM booster so gearing sucks as I need my entire team to be basically same speed.

Spirithost (216)

WM (215)

Kael (202)

JH (201)

Yikes, I didn't realize the gap I had.  I need to boost Kael and JH by 10... My SH is only 4*, like Seeker she is 1 trick pony 4 me. Though A2 is helpful.  I am going to try High Khatun and see if I can swap the ATK up for TM boost and still get a kill for JH.

Yeah....getting all of that speed is the problem. I can't pass stage 12 on dragon yet. I guess part of my problem is that I don't concentrate on grinding champs for one facet of the game. I've distributed it across the board making improvements here and there for different dungeons. It has helped on some, others I need to do more grinding on.

 I've put my 6* upgrades towards arena in hopes of making some progress (and I have, but it just doesn't scale with what matchmaking is throwing at me - I stay in Bronze 4 and occasionally break into Silver 1). But arena is more and more becoming an exercise in futility, so I may just try to maintain where I'm at, get my GH as far as I can on Bronze tokens but focus on Dungeon teams so I can get the gear.

Of course I may say screw it and quit if something doesn't give in arena by the time my 90 days are up. Like I said before, I'm not opposed to spending money on the game. I already have and would regularly make smaller purchases if arena wasn't so terrible. I've put my foot down on that, because I don't feel Plarium deserves any more of my hard-earned money while they let the current situation stand. 

Sent you PM, don't think you can post screenshot from mobile only PC

Rauthma said:

Yeah....getting all of that speed is the problem. I can't pass stage 12 on dragon yet. I guess part of my problem is that I don't concentrate on grinding champs for one facet of the game. I've distributed it across the board making improvements here and there for different dungeons. It has helped on some, others I need to do more grinding on.

 I've put my 6* upgrades towards arena in hopes of making some progress (and I have, but it just doesn't scale with what matchmaking is throwing at me - I stay in Bronze 4 and occasionally break into Silver 1). But arena is more and more becoming an exercise in futility, so I may just try to maintain where I'm at, get my GH as far as I can on Bronze tokens but focus on Dungeon teams so I can get the gear.

Of course I may say screw it and quit if something doesn't give in arena by the time my 90 days are up. Like I said before, I'm not opposed to spending money on the game. I already have and would regularly make smaller purchases if arena wasn't so terrible. I've put my foot down on that, because I don't feel Plarium deserves any more of my hard-earned money while they let the current situation stand. 

To be honest, Arena was not a priority for me, untill I meet the "reach silver 1" progress mission, I still don't take it too seriously and now I meet the "win 50 silver medal" mission

Personally my priority goal is still to be able to auto the dungeons on their max level, and then faction wars, and then Arena.... I don't really like the system on 3v3, so I probably won't be playing that content for the foreseeable future, but we'll see...

Yeah I'm stuck on 50 silver medals (I have a grand total of 5 right now).

Agree on 3v3. Feels like a total waste of time at the moment. Maybe the bizarre will be worthwhile, but I suspect getting those rewards will be another paywall if you don't have 3 competitive teams. 

TBH, I'm ultimately more concerned with the ability to develop my GH than completing the missions. That's why I'm a bit peeved about the arena situation, as well as the fact that speed competitions and mismatched fight options just make it NOT fun. It's a chore, which isn't the worst thing that can happen - but unlike leveling food or farming dungeons, arena isn't rewarding. You get stuck for the foreseeable future because the system doesn't account for real power level. 

It's easy for an experienced player to pick holes in a 4 x 6* legendary team in Bronze 4, but how crappy their team composition compares to Gold 4 teams doesn't change the fact that the relative power level is far too much for newer players to overcome given the resources available to them. That's where all of the complaints are coming from.

Bronze should be early game, Silver mid, Gold end-game. That's not what's happening. 

Trips said:

Nobody is saying all is well. I think all perspectives should be allowed to "contribute" to the discussion.  Otherwise we would have 90% whiners who just have bad teams. TBH even after they adjust arena (assuming they ever do because they are slow AF at doing anything), these 90% won't sniff arbiter. 

1. The glitch (in the players favor) artificially pushed people (myself included) up higher than we would have been.  For whatever this went way after a month or so.  No more easy full page wins -- YES this happened for at least a month where you would get a refresh of automatic wins.

2. Without the automatic page of wins and food defenses, in 2 weeks a gold4 account will easily drop to silver.

3. The inflation in the game will not be accounted for 100%, just not possible IMO. So arena will still be harder than in the beginning, but hopefully more manageable for newer accounts.  Will it be more of a paywall then before. YES. Should this be a surprise to anyone? NO. Plarium, community managers, mods won't acknowledge this but it is the CORRECT business decision.  They don't want 90% F2P, paywalls are good for business.  But they didn't expect the wall to start affecting P2P as it is now.  This is why they will change it.  They don't care about 100% F2P, nor should they other than lip service lol.  This is a "gambling" game, they want to get you addicted in 30-60 days.  Then they want you to PAY or LEAVE. 

I have the perspective of my G4 main account and a f2p S2/3 alt account.  I can tell you the following from my perspective:

1. Plarium absolutely has SHIT the bed at developing the game over the 7 months I have played.  I would give 1* only for BP Season 1.  No new content (3v3 is a copy/paste), not addressing basic AI issues for most heroes, event/tournaments are just repeats (1 epic fail attempt with rare dragon tournament -- HEY how about a mino tourney or potion event, at least it would be different).  Terrible development, horrid analytics group I would guess, tells me it is an upper management issue.

2. Community managers and mods are doing the best they can with the info they have, we should not berate them. Mostly they are either passing along info or just giving their best advice.

3. Arena got way too hard relative to the mission progression.  Plarium, slow to react as always lol, is just realizing this.  It is NOT any of the conspiracy theories.  INACTIVES are a small part of the problem.  All the accounts are just better now -- INFLATION.  And most are smarter.  6 months ago, 2 of 10 had good comps now it is 5-7 of 10.

4. The reset to the bottom of division is also problem IMO.

5. SPEED.  I understand everyone complaining about this, but speed is not just the meta for arena it is for the entire game. I'm not saying you need 300 speed, I never had anyone over 230.  But the Legendary teams in S2/3 are usually stuck there because they are 150 speed.  I win by getting at least 2 turns (usually 3) before they get any.  This same strategy helps in dungeons, clan boss and campaign farming.  

Lastly, if you haven't changed your team in a month you shouldn't expect to be in a higher division... this is directed at myself as I still have 4* Spirithost on arena team.  If I took my own advice I might be a step closer to Gold, lol.

So it is a correct business choice to completely lock players out of an aspect of a ADVERTISED FREE TO PLAY GAME unless they spend money? Wrong

So it is a correct business choice to only cater to or care about the ones who spend the most money? Wrong

Every new player can be a person that spends money on this game, if they feel that they are getting their money's worth, and they feel that the devs actually care about the players. Even the whales have seen that plarium doesn't care about the player base and is not spending......hell even their own content creators that they pay through in game currency are starting to not spend money on this game.

Doesn't matter if you spend 1 dollar or 100 dollars, every persons what to know that their voice counts.......because the whales will say everything is perfect, nothing needs to be changed, because for them who spent tons of money, everything is perfect because they have all the champs they need to do everything in the game. While the people who spend less or don't spend are forced to struggle through everything, but plarium ignores them, and won't change anything unless the whales cry.

Hell they even got rid of Void Tower, which was supposed to be ways the get things as rewards for free, got removed for another arena where you gotta spend money to compete.

Trips said:

Rauthma- Miscreated Monster alone should get you to dragon13 boss...hmm, has to be gear (I know chicken & egg lol).  Definitely bite the bullet and grind the chickens. Rank up apo & steelskull and focus on dragon for gear.  I am treading water in silver2 with a 74% win rate (162-55).  My win rate is dropping each week as I am focusing on dungeons and CB.  I think you should do the same, obviously still improving where you can in Arena.  

I JUST beat dragon 12 for the first time. Maneater to the rescue! 

As far as CB, it's a work in progress. I joined an open clan on the first day and have just kind of hung there. Not many active players and the ones that do hit CB don't seem to be improving much.