The trouble with using teams like that is, you'll basically only get attacked by teams that can beat you. And while that might seem like a pretty good deal, unfortunately, it's also really easy to figure out if you can win.

The teams that I tend to avoid fighting in arena usually fall into one of three buckets:

1) Teams with a 30%+ SPD aura lead and two TM boosters (usually, Arbiter + someone else). I avoid these mainly because it's just too hard to tell if I can win the speed race - my Arbiter is at 305 speed, which isn't high enough to win consistently enough for my tastes

2) Teams with specific champs that are made to counter speed nukers - basically, teams with some combination of Hegemon, Tormin, or Khoronar

3) Teams with a RES aura lead such as Rhazin, or, worse, Lydia. I avoid these teams mainly because they're basically built to counter my team

Teams like yours, with a DEF lead such as Seeker, Martyr, etc..., I usually actively look for, since I can almost always wipe the floor with them.

So I would suggest keeping your speed nuke team as your arena defense team. Deterrence is generally the best form of defense.

I have a setup like that, with Seeker, Madame Serris, Candraphon and Minaya. I can usually win against speed teams in silver and even G1. I should probably replace Minaya with another nuker, or possibly work in Cardinal for backup, but I don't really have another nuker at the moment. I've started casually working on Dark Elhain which I got not long ago, but I'm not sure she will survive the nuke and have enough damage to contribute much. Candraphon survives mostly by his passive proccing pretty much always combined with defense buff from Seeker. Minaya, meanwhile, offers a great AoE heal to recover from the enemy initial nuke, possibly a bonus shield, and with the defense buff from Seeker also immunity for 2 turns.

The speed teams I struggle most against are those with reliable multi-turn disables, especially buff and active skill blocking or AoE provokes, because then I'm basically a sitting duck even when I survive the first nuke. If Minaya escapes the disable and can do her heal and immunity against further debuffs, I can sometimes recover, but it's a struggle. There's also the odd team that just have the stats to power through and take out a couple of my team in the first nuke (usually Serris and/or Seeker), in which case I'm likely in trouble.

Thanks both, some valid points there- the advantage is with the attacker so they can work out if they can beat your team. With a speed nuke team in defence they are taking a bit more of a gamble.

My biggest fear as mentioned with a go second team is being totally crowd controlled, even with my speed team i cringe inside when i see an umbral enchantress on the enemy team since if she gets a go its over for me generally.

I will stick with the speed nuke team for now, i get hit a lot in defence already, but i have about a 45% win rate so dont drop too dramatically, i just zigzag between s4 and g1 constantly.

Thanks again.

The best thing you can do on your defence, is have a team that has a "surprise". Basically, you want to bait them into attacking you, and then getting caught off guard when you have something they didn't expect.

This is why the speed nuke teams work so well - they have a deceptively low team power, so people, especially at lower ranks, get fooled into thinking they can win. It's also why teams with gimmicks like Cardinal work well. If you happen to have one of those gimmick champs, you could try building a team like that.

If not, you're best off just hoping they ignore you.

If i see a speed nuke team under 100k power i actively avoid them :)

Experience has taught me they are invariably 300+ speed!

If I see a speed nuke team under 100k power and not a lot of disables (or some other special cases), I think free food and usually it is. It doesn't matter to me how fast they are since I know they'll go first anyway, what matters is if I get a turn to do a followup.

As for defense, it's weird after the arena "fix". I've had my solo Seeker for defense all day, and I haven't been attacked at all in literally 12 hours. Every day I drop down to upper S3 or lower S4, then climb my way back up to G1 (currently at 2057 points). It seems I'm only getting attacked while I'm sleeping, so it actually works out quite well for me. I have no interest in being in G1 for as long as it requires me to constantly refresh to find matches.

Building a "go second" team helps more on offense, because as others stated you only get attacked by teams that see your comp and have reason to believe they can beat you.  In G4, I am lucky to win 20% on defense.  And 90% of the time I lose the rematch.  The speed defense is still best, assuming you are fast enough.  But the go 2nd team will give you some flrxibilty to attack the weaker speed teams.  Anyone with Serris or Spider can completely bypass the seeker passive (I think they all get hit at same time on AOE, then it procs?) and the nuker still wipes all or most on 1st hit.

Wierd because i never, ever see 1 man defences no matter how many times i refresh, in the last 12 hours i have been hit 19 times (8 losses, 11 wins, a bit better than normal today)- its when i actually get back into gold that i get relentlessly smashed down, sometimes by 2 tiers.

Mostly being hit by kymar/arbiter leads with the odd rhazin/tormin high resist style team,  and those 8 losses came from just 3 people so once an enemy beats me they must be burning gems to find me again.

As i understand it - no the lead get hits by the AOE first, i wasnt sure (hence the post) but i have since watched a machan vid (plat arena guy from [MAD] and he seems to be saying aoe does not hit all at the same time.

So if seeker is lead, passive procs in middle of AOE? 

That seems to be what MacChan is saying, thats why i suddenly thought 'maybe i could base a go second team around him leading' as it seemed so strong (i only got seeker a week ago so not used a lot, i just used as a straight upgrade to apoth for turn meter, with the provoke as a sweet bonus)

I'm more inclined to think it relates to turn order than lead, if it doesn't just proc before any damage is done regardless, since I've experimented with putting both Minaya and Candraphon in the lead for their respective auras, and it seems to proc all the same.

For a go second team, you're generally going to need sky-high resistance - and that's obviously easier with a resistance aura than with a defense aura. High defense doesn't help you that much when most attackers will reduce it by fifty percent before doing their damage. 

Block debuffs / immunity gear helps too, but is strippable, so many enemies will attack with a Serris or Sethallia and just remove it, so it comes back to resistance being key. 

It has to do with position in the team actually... yes, leader gets hit first, then the rest depends on the position you put them in. But I've never cared enough to figure out the details of who to put where for things like Seeker's passive. 

Yeh - i think many are suggesting hp > defence right now for just that reason.

I think it is still a gear check for me, i pulled mountain king when i pulled seeker last week, and honestly? i still dont have the gear to make him work well...

High resistance at the same time as other good stats are probably still beyond me, although i do have rhazin for the aura.

Gear and of course great hall, having sky high resistance is much easier if you get a GH bonus of 80 on all affinities... 

For sure Krama is right, with a def or res aura you'll draw more attention and more people will at least look at your team and carefully consider if they could take it - while an Arbi team with one or two other scary champions, they might just pass over right away. Then again, there will be some attackers who have super high speed but meh accuracy, so those might prefer to take their chances with an Arbi team over a Rhazin one. 

So yeah, to get defensive wins you'd need some kind of surprise, which could be unusually high resistance for your tier, but it could also be some other things - a Seeker that is so crazy fast that he's still going first despite lacking the speed aura, for instance. Or a nuker with counterattack masteries and swift parry, or someone with a freeze set, or... Of course those are RNG and they will only proc some of the time.  But then, you don't need to win all of your defensive fights, winning some is good enough, so having RNG on such things isn't necessarily a problem. 

You  are  correct,  Trevor.

AOE  hits  in  Order  of  your  hero  Placement.

The  AOE  hit  goes  in  below  Order:

-  Leader  

-  2nd  Slot

-  3rd  Slot

-  4th  Slot

If  Seeker  is  in  Lead  Spot,  The  AOE  will  hit  him  First.

If  Enemy  Critical  hits,  His  Passive  will  trigger  putting  Increase  DEF  Buff  on  rest  of  team.

The  Increase  DEF  Buff  will  reduce  incoming  damage  from  2nd  Slot  to  4th  Slot.

Seeker  will  take  full  brunt  of  hit,  but  rest  of  team  will  take  water  down  hit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

In  Regard  to  making  Go  2nd  Team,  It  is  ok  to  use  DEF  Aura.

You  just  want  to  make  sure  you  have  Disrupted Champion  on  your  team.

Tormin  -  Hegemon -  Yoshi  -  Etc.

Kramaswamy sort  of  mention  the  issue.

You  don't want  to  have  DEF  Aura  &  take  an  unobstructed Nuke  from  Speed  Team.

DEF  Aura  helps  with  Damage  Mitigration.

It  doesn't stop  their  Debuffs.

The  Debuffs  they  use  will  reduce  your  Damage  Mitigation with  stuff  like  (DEF  Break)

The  way  to  stop  Debuffer  with  DEF  Aura  set  up  is  with  HERO PASSIVE PLAY.

-  Tormin  Freezing  Enemy  Debuffer

-  Hegemon  Locking  out  Enemy  Debuffer

etc.

Alternatively,  you  could  be  a  RESIST  set  up.

It  is  a  different way  of  playing against  enemy  Debuffer.

It  takes  advantage of  the  ACC  vs.  RESIST  Mechanic  in  the  game.

Obviously,  I  don't know  what  hero's  you  have  on  your  roster.

I  just  want  you  to  know  Seeker  can  play  on  either  play  style.

If  you  make  DEF  Aura  set  up,  you  want  Seeker  in  first  spot.

If  you  make  RESIST Aura  set  up,  you  want  Seeker  in  second  spot.

Thanks, i appreciate the post.

I do have rhazin (i dont really use him outside of faction wars) and i could lead with rhazin and go seeker second,l i was thinking mountain king and miscreated monster for the other two spots. My mm has high resistance anyway  and very good HP.

Cant help feeling that rhazin, seeker, mountain king, miscreated monster is a very 'unscary' looking team however and ill get hit a lot. Also this team has no debuffer! but with mountain king i think its a touch more possible to nuke without def debuff.

Do  you  have  a  Counter  Attack  hero?

Unfortunately just a poor mans version (ally attack- fahrakin) but he is on the CB team and in lifesteal and i dont have any champs with hard hitting aoe on the A1 anyway