Hegemon has made a big comeback since Armanz showed up.

I kinda expect to see a gear set introduced that blocks tm and cooldown reductions.

Armanz is definitely toxic but wholly I agree with you.  Quinn and I have recently discussed how the arena meta is in the best place it has been in the last few years.

Armanz levels the playing field, similar to wukong, ronda, ... any free/easy to get champ.

It gives me 10 (instead of 9 useable champs) whereas the whale goes from 99 to 100.  Slight exaggeration, but I think you get my point

I disagree completely.

As someone who doesn't spend hundreds to spam shards I have no counter for Armanz. I can't fight any classic or 3v3 arena team against him. A 15k armanz can crush my 200k team without hesitation. He is a hard barrier to entry for anyone that doesn't have him and I'd argue renders new/intermediate players useless. He is absolutely ridiculous. In live he is a guaranteed ban, which allows the opponent to stack a perfect 4 man. 

Of course I could spend weeks farming resistance gear, only to give up my speed and get 10 second KO'd by speed nuke teams. 

Armanz makes me rethink raid because is a hard barrier to my ability to play.

As much as i love using him myself when he isnt banned, if it would be up to me, i wouldnt think twice before adding 1 extra turn to the stunwave cooldown, have to be insane to think that effectively 2 turn cd is ok for that skill xD

Love to see this post. 

I agree with Skillz that arena is in the best place that I've seen in two years? Maybe more? 

It's so nice to have free options to deal with the insane rosters of multiple mythicals I have to deal with in many Live fights. Champs like Armanz and Wukong have to be pretty op to contend with the Super Mega OP that many mythicals are.

Also Helior! I 100% didn't think of him, he's just just sitting leveled in my vault ungeared. I wonder if I can sneak wins in with him versus Armanz in Tag and Live. I'll have to try and get him geared to see if he can do okay damage too.

Yeah, I had like 7 realistically viable champs versus the stuff I'm facing in Live. Armanz gives me 8, another tool that's on par with the champs the people I'm facing are using.

A few things that I have noticed about him. 

Blizzar has made it into my lineup more and more and I pair him with WuKong. One of the times those two are going to die and pop back up before Armanz gets his turn and then I can CC or kill him. 

The OP is exactly right that there are people out there that when picking in live arena they only throw one DPS person on their team and a bunch of support. Ban their DPS and you can outlast them. 

If they have Wukong I have to use UDK so that wukong doesn't wipe my team but if they do not I will put in Tuhanarak in UDK's place to cleanse the stun and keep the team going. 

What I absolutely love about Armanz is that for teams that were previously built to be unkillable, him and Fenax are a f-ing nightmare for those teams. They are usually built with UDK, a cleanser, someone to rez, and their nuker. I steal their turn meter and stun who isn't under stoneskin, sheep UKD and cleanse all unprotected buffs on their team, and then I just pick the one with the lowest health and is stunned so that I get two hits and have Fenax kill that person. Rinse and repeat. This works awesome with teams built around the UDK, Wukong pairing. Often times they only have Wukong as their DPS option. 

Ditto.  My Helior is levelled & mastered, but not booked or geared.  I may book him over CVC next week and I have a solid inventory of Righteous gear, so I should be able to do a good build.

LMK if he works out for you.  

We'll see how long it takes me to get around to him lol

I think August 2025 is where I set the over/under :)

Two years ahead of my pace

would still be better than me, I just six star champs to finish fusions then go on to vault them after forgetting what I was doing in the first place

Booked, gemmed masteries, 60, S tier void lego ... and still haven't geared.   

Topped?

I built him last weekend & booked him over CVC earlier this week.  I prioritized Speed & Resistance over Damage.  I have not committed many glyphs yet.  I have not really made use of him in Live Arena yet, but I have used him a bit in Classic & 3v3.  I also took the clan quest for beating Spider with all Banner Lords, and he puts up shields like Frankenstein does, maybe even bigger. 

i

Three (More) Cheers for the Armanz/Anti-Armanz Arena Meta:

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Congrats!

Easy to see the two schools of thought on this, the End Gamers like the 'new meta' challenge, and for them it is fun and they have the champs and gear to do it.

However the vast majority of players in Raid is new players mid game, casual players and not end game he is pretty certain a guaranteed loss - a lot worse than the fuss when UDK was introduced

It's the have and have nots, have Armanz, have the gear and champs, - for the recor I have but I don't agree with the 'isn't it great' comments - Plarium are pushing PvP and for the majority of the player base they won't be at a level to counter this guy

Came from work, thought id do some classic arena, went against solo armanz with my 4 man team, kimi 350 going into arbiter 288 etc... almost lost to the guy, held my team hostage until wukong died and got a turn after revive. Just shows how oppressive the guy is, the stunwave needs 1 more turn to cd added i think

I am surprised he was doing enough damage to hurt your team. Just pop doompriest or Tuhanarak on your team next time and you will get your turn and be able to keep up with his damage. The other thing is that with my Armanz, I can handle a good team if only two of their team have stoneskin but not 3 or 4 depending on their team makeup. Especially if one of those is UDK because I always want to sheep UDK. That means I have a choice of sheeping their UDK and hoping that I surprive their AOE nuker or I sheep their nuker and hope that I can handle their WuKong or other person that I can't kill with a block revive.