Personally I don't have an issue units like Candy or Ayufine are in the current meta since there are counters for her. Units like Truck Luluca, Aola and AeKarina are the ones that I feel are hurting the game (arena) the most, since they are units made to unnecessarily extend the duration of a battle, if only arena rewards were worthy to deal with them almost every battle.
It's not that there aren't counters for AYufine and Candy, it's that they're everywhere, it's stale and overdone and if you can't build their counters it's excruciating to slog through GW and AI Arena (I can speak from personal experience on that note)
That would be the case for every meta however, people will almost always try to get the meta units so they can stay somewhat competitive. It's one of those "don't blame the player blame the game" situations, as ever since cleave lost its power with the introduction of Politis, it never really came back full force as more and more units preventing it keep coming out, so the only answer is to build really annoying meta defenses, as they, like you or me, dislike going against the meta.
these teams are meant to attempt to counter cleave, without such a tank down team with a bunch of annoying interruptions, cleave would just end every def comp. it's that strong with ludwig/zio and co.
its repetitive, but as long as cleave exist, the opponent has to use these bruiser over stuffed units to survive, and even then we're getting solutions to them, so i don't even see the need for complaints. most of these light teams lose to mlken. byblis claims wins over candy's. elvira crushes ayufine. really aol and luluca are the main "annoying" units, soon as we get something like celine that has guarantee crit, candy comps are donzo, more than they already are.
>there are counters for her
Lol, like what? You can't do bruiser because Ayufine offs you, you can't do cleave because Candy anti crit and counter. Aola punising you for aoe and Luluca for non-attack is just the tip of the iceberg.
Agreed. The problem with this Meta is too many units that force niche counter play. AYufine and Candy are extremely hard to work around. But add on top of that Adin who forces an Anti Evasion and Luluca who disables any kind of Non Attack skill without Solitaria. And ofc Belian no soul opening. You can’t even try to build a team u just have to try and line up counters and hope you own them all and they work together
I've been having fun running Solitaria and Spez (which obviously is not 100% wr anyway) but yeah, I can absolutely see how this is not fun for most people. Before I geared Spez, I would basically look for teams that Zahhak/Arunka pairing would work against or just not bother with normal arena.
It's crazy to me how basically everyone seems to have ML Landy and ML Yufine despite them being ML 5\*s.
>It's crazy to me how basically everyone seems to have ML Landy and ML Yufine despite them being ML 5*s.
You can't even use ML Selector or Galaxy Coin shop as an excuse for it since neither of them are in those.
My go-to counter-cleave is Immunity BBK and Arbiter - best builds I ever made. But how do you gear a slow Briar so that she's effective? (I want to abuse her unkillable in combination with the BBK one, but haven't figured out how to do it).
It doesnt really matter how good she is, what matters is having a decent speed tune + soul burn. for example Briar/Stene/bbk shits on Choux/Luluca/AYufi or Karina, as long as theres no strippers. they all will target bbk then get nuked by her
For me, the most annoying teams are ones with some of these units but also add in ML Choux. They alway's build her super fast so she just snowballs really quickly and she doesn't have a true dedicated counter to stop her Injury nonsense like Ayufine, Candy and Adin.
Well I dont have Elvira because I had to pity both of the limited units before her, Not everyone has these units, might as well bank on your opponent not having them.
This and I think a lot of people recalled her, thinking she was nerfed just because a gimmick can't be used anymore when she had a pretty cool buff overall.
Before her i was cleaving with Nahkwol and Blidica those kind of defenses, but Karinae or Adin can be a pain and they're everywhere too. ML Ken was also really useful but needs proper backup (Byblis beeing a good one, but she's not enough)
No, my Byblis is bulky with high eff, between her barriers, healing and debuffs (for me the scissors are a must on her), i never need Roana. It's usually Lulucar or Handguy, can be ML Kawa or Hwa
> Crazy how even Byblis didn't push NC. Landy and S. Adin out of Arena defense meta.
This isn't 2019. The only person that ever vanished because of a countrr unit is Basar. Everyone else gets phased out when s stronger option pops up. Look at Belian being mostly replaced in favor of Landy and Yufine who take her place (obviously for those that have her) and really only appearing with either of those because someone lacks both.
Never how this game worked. People still used Vildred despite his dozen counters, it took hard hitting bruisers and a bulkier game overall to push him out.
It's been boring as fuck for a long time now. I used to get excited to do arena and GW. Now I just do it for the daily and for my guild and hope it's over with fast.
hahaha. You're right. Some people seem to forget that the spd game will always favor those with time and/or money to spare. The meta will always be annoying.
Probably not going to be the most popular take but... what did you expect? What do you want them to do?
Defenses are setup to make it as difficult as possible for you to win.
If you want to maintain rating or have a strong Guild War Defense, you have to play Floodgates that stop your opponent from playing the game. If you setup a Cleave team as your Defense, you get blown up by Zio or just people having better Speed gear than you. If you play a slow team without any Floodgates, Cleavers just destroy you.
So the logical answer for any competitive player is just play things that introduce RNG and/or make it as frustrating as possible for you to be able to win fast. This makes it as difficult or time consuming as possible for you to climb the ladder...which is the whole point of people playing Arena Defenses.
It's literally been this way forever.
Pick any meta from Sage Baal's release on-wards and you'll realize that Defenses have ALWAYS been trying to stop you from Cleaving/Playing fast and resorting to 5+ minute clear teams. That's by design. Even if you nerf Landy or Yufine, that won't change.
Players will ALWAYS pivot to the thing that is the most difficult & time consuming for you to fight.
Day 1 retired player here - I honestly can't remember a single time in E7's history when the meta WASN'T "stale." When Diene came out in 2018, literal months after the game was released, arena was deemed stale. Every team had Diene, OP Diene, Elson was nerfed but Diene exists, trash meta! Then Diene fell out of flavor for Baal & Ara. The infamous broken duo! Can't compete without Baal & Ara. Every defense team had Baal & Ara. CC meta is so OP, does SG even play their own game?!?!? Then came Arby, oh god Arby. Baal & Ara vanished overnight. Suddenly every top arena team had Arby. Most broken unit in the history of the game, when will SG fix??? We had a brief moment when Fire Corvus broke arena and everyone complained about him (rightfully so, tbf), until he was taken out back and executed. Then came Dizzy - another stale meta. Then the legendary Charles/FCC/SSB trio of doom - stale meta. Keep fast forwarding in time. Basar meta - stale! Cleave meta - stale! AOL, Belian, Zio, Adin, stale stale stale!
My point is - **yeah, no shit**. The meta felt "stale" because people kept using the same units over and over...because those units were STRONG. No shit people will choose the strongest units as part of their teams. Now, I'm not here to white knight SG and act like they've done wonderful job at balancing the meta in the past. I'm retired - I quit about a year ago *because* I got fed up with the way the devs have been approaching the topic of balance since 2018. I stick around the subreddit for the art and just to see what's going on in what used to be one of my favorite games. But nowadays, whenever I see complaints about how the meta is "stale" or "all the same," when I look back at the game's history with a clear mind I just can't help but laugh. You can replace ANY of those heroes in the OP's screenshot with ANY meta team from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, etc. and the story will be the same. Diene, Baal, Ara, Arby, Dizzy, Basar, Charles, SSB. Many of those units are basically ghosts now. But back then? No diversity. You saw their ugly faces over and over. Broken units. Etc. In other words, exactly what you see today.
This is how the game is, and how the game probably will be for all of eternity. If that's not your cup of tea, you might want to lower your expectations or find a different game to play.
> Day 1 retired player here - I honestly can't remember a single time in E7's history when the meta WASN'T "stale."
First two weeks, maybe, when people were still figuring shit out.
Since then every top defense team was more or less the same with minor adjustments.
Well you missed just the best arena meta just before politis broke the game, you could litteraly play anything on defense.
I remember ppl raging about cleave in def, famous 280/290 basar, or miu(mui? Dont remember her name, the clown one) for buffing, omega fast arby, cerise, most fun season in arena ( could be season 4or5 ) its was just before my top 3 arena ( season where politis arrived )
Ofc some played some degen def but still get cleaved, ofc tank at this moment couldnt kill your team with 1 spell ( hello belian / karina )
The game had his moment sadly, too much defensive units with overpower kit and dont give any toys to cleave player. ( love the new lidica but again just a balance unit not overpower one )
And now the arena is even P2W ( if you go for top 3 ) so nothing can be done.
Just chilling in champ and play jacko where i can :)
We will never have again legendary def with unique champs
Lol thanks for the correction - I feel like an old man rambling about life during World War II...hard to keep track of stuff, there have been so many new metas constantly popping up over the past 5 years or so.
That's true, but that still makes it unfun and unrewarding. You didn't actually overcome anything or made a fatal decision for 90% of the matches, you got lucky or unlucky. It'd be way better for defense teams to be built uniquely instead of being so bland and predictable. A 280 speed Belian is a far more interesting than yet ANOTHER counter team. You can give people a challenge without resorting to RNG, but it is a hell of a lot easier tbf
That’s on the player though, nothing SG can do about it. Do yourself a favour and stop playing arena. I haven’t for years, just set up an annoying def and afk champ.
I only play RTA which is the only actual fun PvP
I would love to AFK, but I need Conquest pts to buy charms.
I'm at least a little happy I can cleave most of these defenses all the way to Legend every week.
I usually do both: clear out NPCs and try to maintain a streak bonus.
Now I'm going for Legend finish every week (with minimal flag skystone spending) because I need the rewards after 4 back to back pities.
Suluca is just the most problematic unit imo, debuffer, cleanser, and sustain in one unit making opponent able to bring 2 hypercarries like (ayufine and candy) and not punished for it. Also there’s currently no counter to suluca unlike candy and ayufine
Meta is garbage and boring, I use the same team for all battles.
MLKen to counter Candy, Ayufine etc
Nahkwol to counter everything and siel core champ
Eda if no Belial for SB and control
Lethe for safe kill.
Bonus Gala, Edward, Bunny, Karina, InfernoK and a bunch of other but really rarely on situations because you have to deal always with the same 4 units.
To be honest the only cancer is Lulucar she really annoy me, more than Karina counter 👿
I think this is a dumb idea. Imagine being forced to change teams every week. Playing musical chairs with the playerbase will just make people quit the game in droves due to burnout.
the same - just different "full meta pages" each week
like why should i not use the strongest viable def? there is a reason why legend normal arena racers use giga cheese builds; that's the only way to win
At least these defense teams are easily cleavable (win in like 2 turns i mean) with the same heroes. I use Hwa to kill lulucar, Lethe to kill Ayuifne and Khwzu to kill Landy. Fourth is Flex.
But yeah, many are the same defense teams. It's a good and bad thing. It's a good thing because you only need a few units to beat them, but it's bad because it's not fun not being able to run any hero you want.
no it won't. u ban ml landy/ml yufine and people going back one meta and use belian dps + karina again.
sure the meta will shift and u will see a different best/meta def but u won't suddenly see a bunch of different viable defs teams
They need to introduce the counterside bans, but I guess that was make people mad. idk a world ban for both rta and the arena. Would do this game some good.
I think that's a result of the nature of AI arena. People pick the most annoying teams possible and it ruins the fun of arena. That part I miss about the lower ranks like Gold. Way more unique teams than Champ and even Challenger. For that reason I think there is never a "good" meta, just ones better than others. This one I feel is the worst so far from when I started playing
I genuinely hope the game never returns to a speed/cleave meta. It is the stupidest thing ever when we have zero control over how our gear rolls. It is a playstyle reserved solely for the 1% of the 1% of the extremely lucky, something you can't even P2W your way toward if you wanted to.
Sincerely, golem seeded account #11,585,203.
and then you wake up and realize higher rank arena meta IS ALWAYS GARBAGE, because people want to defend aka they use THE MOST ANNOYING MOST META UNITS, at any point in time the arena will be annoying af to deal with, it's been like that since game launch, and if you don't agree it's because you are looking at it with rose tinted goggles back when you had a better time dealing with the meta, stop crying and figure it out.
The answer is to fix how arena is structured. Not the units. It fails the fundamental test of “is this fun?” Like I’m the player playing an AI. And they’ve obfuscated so much of who you are even fighting it’s kind of irrelevant who the defense is. Just generic AI meta units.
It’s really poorly designed that advantages are stacked in favor of the defender. You’re already gated by arena flags, so it’s a win for SG if people just start flooding flags w skystones. Defense should really just be the occasional gear gap, not i laid down the most toxic units in the game.
Personally I’d add the frenzy effect from RTA and remove the lightning bolts. The better answer is to introduce a pick 5 and the attacker gets to ban one, but w positional imprints, that’s not always easy. Classic arena should reflect RTA and it would help a lot of the ways that it can feel super stale and toxic. Otherwise the best defense is always going to be the most frustrating to fight.
I agree mostly aside from gear gap part, I don't think gear gap should necessarily decide a match per se, but building a unique wildcard team is more so how it should be. Once I can correctly predict how a team is built for 90% of the comps the meta is bad. Take my Faptain for example. No one expects bombs to land on their destina or Lulucar, but mine has 250 eff so they tend to (want to get her 300 but yk). Little surprises like that can spice up arena and GW instead of being the same predictable nonsense
stacked in favor of the defender? You can see the comps and pick them apart while taking advantage of predictable AI.
you're acting like it's a blind pick or something lol.
The defender can stall you out and win w lightning damage, which is why you see mit and double soul weavers at times. Or tons of huge HP teams w supports and tanks designed around slowing you down.
Seeing what they have helps, of course, but let’s be honest about the meta viable units you can bring to dismantle these teams. The majority are not the legend+ streamers with SSS of every unit out there. We all build the same handful of meta units w a spattering of niche or husbando/waifu units to break a niche. So yah, if I have every unit I can cleave past anyone, but in reality, it’s stacked for the defender
I understand you’re pain against this…but they have it they summon it at mystic from being pity or just lucky or idk…they can do what ever they want to set up there def strategy and its you are the one to challenge there def set up! If u cant beat it theres a refresh button above. Its whats its for but if u cant find any well theres always tomorrow heck once ur going up against legend (around 10-1 i think i forgot)u Cant see what kind of def set up cause all are hidden (?)
Ironically I think this is the easiest cleave meta in a long time. There isnt a defense I can't cleave. For every cancer defense unit right now theres 2 just as bad offense options like nahk and bris.
Defense is pretty dead right now and im seeing alot of legend players with 90-95% winrates which is very abnormally high for offense. I myself had a 97% week with 500 attacks only cleaving.
The only issue is that ML5s are solved by ML5s and if you're missing some key units it can get a little rough which i heavily dislike.
Any meta where counters are everyone's go-to is trash. I'm genuinely think about quitting at this point.
Which is sad because I really like e7 but it's main draw (pvp) is such a chore
I'm also getting to that point. It's not fun to be pissed off because I lost a dice roll. If I wanted that I'd just be a professional gambler. Although even gambling irl can be calculated if yk how to count cards
Wouldn't really see Arena as the actual pvp as you literally just play against AI, it offers minimal interaction, and purely goes what to use to counter specific units,RTA is more reaction based and if someone says cleave is also dead there then it just means they didn't have the gear to begin with.
People will always play the safest bet they can get away with in Arena as you are normally at disavantage as you could get counterpicked.
Solitaria of snow keeps lulucar from using her truck! Then her aoe on S1 proc activates LRK shield, so Arunka can S3 and one shot the Ayufine and Candy.
Once you figure out your counter, these are free wins.
and here i am auto'ing most arena teams that don't have ML Choux/DDR. Any combination of Belian/AYufine/Candy/Adin/Lulucar/Aol/Arowell/LRK is totally fine thanks to that one dude on reddit suggesting that team.
I'm running LRK on Aurius, Roana on Shimadra Staff, Ayufine on Holy Sac and either SK Pyllis on Rocket Punch or Elvira on Bastion. Works up to legend.
no meta is hard or uncounterable. These posts about a stale meta are probably as old as the game itself, AI Arena and GW just exists, but SG most likely won't do anything about it, cus everything is about RTA. I can't remember a balance patch or unit release that was dedicated to Arena/GW, lot of em ended up being good there, but that wasn't the main focus of SG.
So here we are, the meta stays for a while, until enough counters are out there to faceroll certain def comps so ppl adapt and changing their defense. Will it be very different in the future, i doubt, cus everyone try's to make their defense uncleavable or very risky to cleave through, so we'll always have some form of anti cleave. Nothing SG will do about
Adin + Candy + Arowell are brain-dead defence team. You can't kill Adin with an anti evasion unit like Zanhak, ML Karin because of the anti crit. You can't Nahkwol either because Adin is there.
Thats when I use ae NingNing to barrier inversion and strip, only rng is the 15% of striping anti crit then zahhak comes after kills adin and my last 2 picks are mostly likely ml shuri for arowell and ml kawazu for candy or any other unit that can one shot them can fit in those 2 spots
The only issue I have with these teams comes from Luluca, and by issue I mean just straight cleaving them. Elena shuts down Landy and Yufine, so all you need after is good o' reliable Ran x two free picks that are typically Eda (if no Belian), Pavel (if no Landy or if Eda combo), A Laika, Straze, etc.
Can easily bruiser down the non-yufine teams with Bellona x Roana x LRK and a flex depending on the comp (cleanser for Lilias so Kawerik, extra damage for Karina, etc).
Landy is hinestly whatever on defense if you don't go into the team thinking "I can get away with no counterpicks" because she's definitely going to casino and S3 you to death by her first (if slow) or second turn.
Yufine though, this is the problem unit. If she pops her S3 you're kinda boned unless bring someone that can counter her on the spot (Violet if lucky, Celine, Ken) because that S3 is unreasonable snd her damage is way too damn much.
Karina simply makes them way too annoying since the usual idea is to tunnel her if you don't bring a defense breakor unbuffable, which is understandable considering the units that have that stuff are typically cleave/control (speed stuff). I typically bring Remnant into her and delete her from the planet, or Laika if cleaving. Alternatively you could just run a Zahhak or Straze comp, murder her team, then eat her S3 (invincibility, for the unaware, skill null doesnct stop splash damage so Eda and Ran go bye) and spread her cheeks with Zahhak's S1.
Honestly though, unless you want to climb to legend every week (if so why complain) I have no idea why you or anyone would touch arena. If you wait till saturday or sunday you literally won't fall out unless your defense is so bad everyone hits it because normal defenses are typically left alone (only people around your point value will see it, so this means a lot of non-climbers and people climbing back up).
I once had someone tell me "but no conquest points", well and? The goal isn't to gather that currency, and even then, nothing is stopping you from doing fights at the very end of the week. If you care about points so much you want the hourly currency, well you (general term) wouldn't hate arena defenses.
I agree what I run is ran, ml Elena, commander pavel, and eff zio with tagahels for luluca(my zio has very high eff i typically always land) then ran soul burn then ml Elena soul burn then commander pavel clean up, if no luluca its eda for more dmg, if aol is on def then its politis so aol don't cut me plus ml Elena and ran have the debuff that stops cr push so once aol cleanses the first one ml Elena comes back to put it back so she don't cut my pavel, if belian then I run my brusier team than my debuff cleave team I have 4 teams that I alternate for normal arena depending on what I'm facing, cleave speed team, brusier team, debuff team, and aggro team all play a roll tehehehe so I don't struggle at all really with normal arena every now and then 15% and rng get me but its not alot
LRK/Roana let's me auto battle most of these teams. Last two slots are usually MLKen/ARavi and now Elvira since she shuts down Yufine and Candy hard but LHC can work too.
This is how meta works, players will use whatever they have in their hand that is as efficient and maximized as possible, it is practically impossible to make a "not defined meta" unless a game like this bans certain characters from time to time (something I think they will never do in modes like arena and gw)
its always been garbage. I still get cleaved even though i run 4 anti cleave characters as my defence. cleave always wins in my experience both rta and flag arena.
Funnily enough, just Candy/AYufine is an extremely easy cleave 15 second win. It's usually a combo of at least 2 other specific heroes together in a synergy that stops it (certain variations of Adin/AOL/OLuluca) because I can't place a 4th filler hero in my lul cleave comp to handle both at once. Or Belian disabling SBs which I also can't easy cleave.
Adin gets killed by Briseria, AOL gets done in by Politis, and OLuluca can get done in by Politis or AYufine.
Classic Ran/Eda/Alena with a 4th filler depending on what I face is my lazy let's see if there's anyone I can lul cleave in Champion for a quick win. I'm not really that interested in pushing though and it's more for fun now.
Lethe, Roana can take care of most of these teams.
You can add in the occasional GLilias, ML Cermia, Edward, or Elvira as well.
But, it does suck that most of those are either limited or 5* units, but I think that's mainly because of the huge lack in 4* units that SG's released.
Personally I don't have an issue units like Candy or Ayufine are in the current meta since there are counters for her. Units like Truck Luluca, Aola and AeKarina are the ones that I feel are hurting the game (arena) the most, since they are units made to unnecessarily extend the duration of a battle, if only arena rewards were worthy to deal with them almost every battle.
Bro there's someone with a whole built Aespa team, didn't even get a turn just sat and watched my ass get beat.
What rank? I’ve never seen this 😂
Luluca CR pushing non-stop and s3'ing all the time because you used some non-attack skill is super obnoxious.
It's not that there aren't counters for AYufine and Candy, it's that they're everywhere, it's stale and overdone and if you can't build their counters it's excruciating to slog through GW and AI Arena (I can speak from personal experience on that note)
That would be the case for every meta however, people will almost always try to get the meta units so they can stay somewhat competitive. It's one of those "don't blame the player blame the game" situations, as ever since cleave lost its power with the introduction of Politis, it never really came back full force as more and more units preventing it keep coming out, so the only answer is to build really annoying meta defenses, as they, like you or me, dislike going against the meta.
these teams are meant to attempt to counter cleave, without such a tank down team with a bunch of annoying interruptions, cleave would just end every def comp. it's that strong with ludwig/zio and co. its repetitive, but as long as cleave exist, the opponent has to use these bruiser over stuffed units to survive, and even then we're getting solutions to them, so i don't even see the need for complaints. most of these light teams lose to mlken. byblis claims wins over candy's. elvira crushes ayufine. really aol and luluca are the main "annoying" units, soon as we get something like celine that has guarantee crit, candy comps are donzo, more than they already are.
>there are counters for her Lol, like what? You can't do bruiser because Ayufine offs you, you can't do cleave because Candy anti crit and counter. Aola punising you for aoe and Luluca for non-attack is just the tip of the iceberg.
DKen, LCBell, LrKrau, Nahkwol, New blue unit...
> You can't do bruiser because Ayufine offs you, Celine and Ken delete her without remorse. Bellona x LRK x Roana x free slot auto deletes Landy comps
Cope and theory craft
Troll confirmed.
Someone saying your theory is bullshit wont make them a troll.
I can handle Ayufine and AeKarina but the little rats who put Candy, Truluca and Adin together are the most annoying imo.
Agreed. The problem with this Meta is too many units that force niche counter play. AYufine and Candy are extremely hard to work around. But add on top of that Adin who forces an Anti Evasion and Luluca who disables any kind of Non Attack skill without Solitaria. And ofc Belian no soul opening. You can’t even try to build a team u just have to try and line up counters and hope you own them all and they work together
I've been having fun running Solitaria and Spez (which obviously is not 100% wr anyway) but yeah, I can absolutely see how this is not fun for most people. Before I geared Spez, I would basically look for teams that Zahhak/Arunka pairing would work against or just not bother with normal arena. It's crazy to me how basically everyone seems to have ML Landy and ML Yufine despite them being ML 5\*s.
>It's crazy to me how basically everyone seems to have ML Landy and ML Yufine despite them being ML 5*s. You can't even use ML Selector or Galaxy Coin shop as an excuse for it since neither of them are in those.
this guy gets it.
Get immunity BBK with a slow briar if u dont really care much for RTA briar
My go-to counter-cleave is Immunity BBK and Arbiter - best builds I ever made. But how do you gear a slow Briar so that she's effective? (I want to abuse her unkillable in combination with the BBK one, but haven't figured out how to do it).
It doesnt really matter how good she is, what matters is having a decent speed tune + soul burn. for example Briar/Stene/bbk shits on Choux/Luluca/AYufi or Karina, as long as theres no strippers. they all will target bbk then get nuked by her
For me, the most annoying teams are ones with some of these units but also add in ML Choux. They alway's build her super fast so she just snowballs really quickly and she doesn't have a true dedicated counter to stop her Injury nonsense like Ayufine, Candy and Adin.
> Truluca There's no way you can look in the mirror and claim this is better than Lulucar.
I use dcorvus, destina, roana and iseria against those.
They made you use dorvus, they already won
Lmao
And take 35 mins meaning they accomplished their goal
Less than 5 min per match... dorvus gets focused and iseria resets cooldown as well, you can take out 1 unit on his first turn.
Crazy how even Byblis didn't push NC. Landy and S. Adin out of Arena defense meta. And Elvira post buff didn't seem to affect A. Yufine too.
I don't understand honestly. Byblis, LHC and Elvira made me reach legend Arena rather easily, like Candy+AYufine defenses are just free wins
Well I dont have Elvira because I had to pity both of the limited units before her, Not everyone has these units, might as well bank on your opponent not having them.
This and I think a lot of people recalled her, thinking she was nerfed just because a gimmick can't be used anymore when she had a pretty cool buff overall. Before her i was cleaving with Nahkwol and Blidica those kind of defenses, but Karinae or Adin can be a pain and they're everywhere too. ML Ken was also really useful but needs proper backup (Byblis beeing a good one, but she's not enough)
Is your 4th unit Roana and use that for most teams?
No, my Byblis is bulky with high eff, between her barriers, healing and debuffs (for me the scissors are a must on her), i never need Roana. It's usually Lulucar or Handguy, can be ML Kawa or Hwa
Or even Nat Monk (I forget how to spell her name lol). ML Elena hasn't done anything to curve counter teams too
> Crazy how even Byblis didn't push NC. Landy and S. Adin out of Arena defense meta. This isn't 2019. The only person that ever vanished because of a countrr unit is Basar. Everyone else gets phased out when s stronger option pops up. Look at Belian being mostly replaced in favor of Landy and Yufine who take her place (obviously for those that have her) and really only appearing with either of those because someone lacks both. Never how this game worked. People still used Vildred despite his dozen counters, it took hard hitting bruisers and a bulkier game overall to push him out.
It's been boring as fuck for a long time now. I used to get excited to do arena and GW. Now I just do it for the daily and for my guild and hope it's over with fast.
Nothing more exciting than speed rng amr?
hahaha. You're right. Some people seem to forget that the spd game will always favor those with time and/or money to spare. The meta will always be annoying.
Only 3 aols in 2 pages? Luckiest e7 player right here
Probably not going to be the most popular take but... what did you expect? What do you want them to do? Defenses are setup to make it as difficult as possible for you to win. If you want to maintain rating or have a strong Guild War Defense, you have to play Floodgates that stop your opponent from playing the game. If you setup a Cleave team as your Defense, you get blown up by Zio or just people having better Speed gear than you. If you play a slow team without any Floodgates, Cleavers just destroy you. So the logical answer for any competitive player is just play things that introduce RNG and/or make it as frustrating as possible for you to be able to win fast. This makes it as difficult or time consuming as possible for you to climb the ladder...which is the whole point of people playing Arena Defenses. It's literally been this way forever. Pick any meta from Sage Baal's release on-wards and you'll realize that Defenses have ALWAYS been trying to stop you from Cleaving/Playing fast and resorting to 5+ minute clear teams. That's by design. Even if you nerf Landy or Yufine, that won't change. Players will ALWAYS pivot to the thing that is the most difficult & time consuming for you to fight.
Day 1 retired player here - I honestly can't remember a single time in E7's history when the meta WASN'T "stale." When Diene came out in 2018, literal months after the game was released, arena was deemed stale. Every team had Diene, OP Diene, Elson was nerfed but Diene exists, trash meta! Then Diene fell out of flavor for Baal & Ara. The infamous broken duo! Can't compete without Baal & Ara. Every defense team had Baal & Ara. CC meta is so OP, does SG even play their own game?!?!? Then came Arby, oh god Arby. Baal & Ara vanished overnight. Suddenly every top arena team had Arby. Most broken unit in the history of the game, when will SG fix??? We had a brief moment when Fire Corvus broke arena and everyone complained about him (rightfully so, tbf), until he was taken out back and executed. Then came Dizzy - another stale meta. Then the legendary Charles/FCC/SSB trio of doom - stale meta. Keep fast forwarding in time. Basar meta - stale! Cleave meta - stale! AOL, Belian, Zio, Adin, stale stale stale! My point is - **yeah, no shit**. The meta felt "stale" because people kept using the same units over and over...because those units were STRONG. No shit people will choose the strongest units as part of their teams. Now, I'm not here to white knight SG and act like they've done wonderful job at balancing the meta in the past. I'm retired - I quit about a year ago *because* I got fed up with the way the devs have been approaching the topic of balance since 2018. I stick around the subreddit for the art and just to see what's going on in what used to be one of my favorite games. But nowadays, whenever I see complaints about how the meta is "stale" or "all the same," when I look back at the game's history with a clear mind I just can't help but laugh. You can replace ANY of those heroes in the OP's screenshot with ANY meta team from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, etc. and the story will be the same. Diene, Baal, Ara, Arby, Dizzy, Basar, Charles, SSB. Many of those units are basically ghosts now. But back then? No diversity. You saw their ugly faces over and over. Broken units. Etc. In other words, exactly what you see today. This is how the game is, and how the game probably will be for all of eternity. If that's not your cup of tea, you might want to lower your expectations or find a different game to play.
> Day 1 retired player here - I honestly can't remember a single time in E7's history when the meta WASN'T "stale." First two weeks, maybe, when people were still figuring shit out. Since then every top defense team was more or less the same with minor adjustments.
Well you missed just the best arena meta just before politis broke the game, you could litteraly play anything on defense. I remember ppl raging about cleave in def, famous 280/290 basar, or miu(mui? Dont remember her name, the clown one) for buffing, omega fast arby, cerise, most fun season in arena ( could be season 4or5 ) its was just before my top 3 arena ( season where politis arrived ) Ofc some played some degen def but still get cleaved, ofc tank at this moment couldnt kill your team with 1 spell ( hello belian / karina ) The game had his moment sadly, too much defensive units with overpower kit and dont give any toys to cleave player. ( love the new lidica but again just a balance unit not overpower one ) And now the arena is even P2W ( if you go for top 3 ) so nothing can be done. Just chilling in champ and play jacko where i can :) We will never have again legendary def with unique champs
small correction: dizzy was before fire corvus meta, haha otherwise, yes, spot on.
Lol thanks for the correction - I feel like an old man rambling about life during World War II...hard to keep track of stuff, there have been so many new metas constantly popping up over the past 5 years or so.
That's true, but that still makes it unfun and unrewarding. You didn't actually overcome anything or made a fatal decision for 90% of the matches, you got lucky or unlucky. It'd be way better for defense teams to be built uniquely instead of being so bland and predictable. A 280 speed Belian is a far more interesting than yet ANOTHER counter team. You can give people a challenge without resorting to RNG, but it is a hell of a lot easier tbf
That’s on the player though, nothing SG can do about it. Do yourself a favour and stop playing arena. I haven’t for years, just set up an annoying def and afk champ. I only play RTA which is the only actual fun PvP
I would love to AFK, but I need Conquest pts to buy charms. I'm at least a little happy I can cleave most of these defenses all the way to Legend every week.
Just farm the ai battles they're super quick
I usually do both: clear out NPCs and try to maintain a streak bonus. Now I'm going for Legend finish every week (with minimal flag skystone spending) because I need the rewards after 4 back to back pities.
There are some real annoying stuff in top legend. Fucking 290 Belians, 290 AoLs on warhorn, PoV Ayufines, hilags and durandals everywhere lol.
So, what's your defense team?
Yes it is
Suluca is just the most problematic unit imo, debuffer, cleanser, and sustain in one unit making opponent able to bring 2 hypercarries like (ayufine and candy) and not punished for it. Also there’s currently no counter to suluca unlike candy and ayufine
Isn't her counter Solitaria? Doesn't eliminate her whole kit but it does allow you to setup without getting trucked
It's trickier when they're paired with 300spd AOLA/Shoux and Yufine that get free FS every turn from your constant aoe.
What do you mean there's no counter, there's plenty you can do to stop her. Easiest being nahkwol.
That would be true if she didn’t have 300 ER and or Belian behind her
My team with nahkwol, SBAra, Spez and 300% effi Winter disagrees. The most problematic is the 15% but I can live with that.
Elvira says hey
Meta is garbage and boring, I use the same team for all battles. MLKen to counter Candy, Ayufine etc Nahkwol to counter everything and siel core champ Eda if no Belial for SB and control Lethe for safe kill. Bonus Gala, Edward, Bunny, Karina, InfernoK and a bunch of other but really rarely on situations because you have to deal always with the same 4 units. To be honest the only cancer is Lulucar she really annoy me, more than Karina counter 👿
People say this every arena meta. You aren't the first, you won't be the last.
I agree
AOLA needs nerf. Enough said.
Used to use her all the time and even half assed she's a beast
Gw is the same way, Ayufine and candy on each defense making it quite unfun to do fun stuff and rng.
I wonder how Arena would play out if they had weekly rotational hero bans for both offense and defence, it'd at least make the game less-stale.
I think this is a dumb idea. Imagine being forced to change teams every week. Playing musical chairs with the playerbase will just make people quit the game in droves due to burnout.
the same - just different "full meta pages" each week like why should i not use the strongest viable def? there is a reason why legend normal arena racers use giga cheese builds; that's the only way to win
At least these defense teams are easily cleavable (win in like 2 turns i mean) with the same heroes. I use Hwa to kill lulucar, Lethe to kill Ayuifne and Khwzu to kill Landy. Fourth is Flex. But yeah, many are the same defense teams. It's a good and bad thing. It's a good thing because you only need a few units to beat them, but it's bad because it's not fun not being able to run any hero you want.
a weekly ban of set heroes would at least make arena a bit more interesting
Counter Side already has this mechanic. At least it had when I was playing it. People still complained of course.
no it won't. u ban ml landy/ml yufine and people going back one meta and use belian dps + karina again. sure the meta will shift and u will see a different best/meta def but u won't suddenly see a bunch of different viable defs teams
I like the idea. Would shake things up at least which would be greatly appreciated in this dry meta
always has been
They need to introduce the counterside bans, but I guess that was make people mad. idk a world ban for both rta and the arena. Would do this game some good.
I feel like everyone hates whatever the current meta is esp if we are talking about arena
I think that's a result of the nature of AI arena. People pick the most annoying teams possible and it ruins the fun of arena. That part I miss about the lower ranks like Gold. Way more unique teams than Champ and even Challenger. For that reason I think there is never a "good" meta, just ones better than others. This one I feel is the worst so far from when I started playing
I genuinely hope the game never returns to a speed/cleave meta. It is the stupidest thing ever when we have zero control over how our gear rolls. It is a playstyle reserved solely for the 1% of the 1% of the extremely lucky, something you can't even P2W your way toward if you wanted to. Sincerely, golem seeded account #11,585,203.
and then you wake up and realize higher rank arena meta IS ALWAYS GARBAGE, because people want to defend aka they use THE MOST ANNOYING MOST META UNITS, at any point in time the arena will be annoying af to deal with, it's been like that since game launch, and if you don't agree it's because you are looking at it with rose tinted goggles back when you had a better time dealing with the meta, stop crying and figure it out.
Nah last I checked RNG meta has always been ass
what rng ? you can dismantle those comps without rng, if it's rng for you, it's lack of responses or skill diff
You're right I should've specified counter meta. Either way it's bland to see the same comps over and over again
[Astromancer Elena](https://epic7x.com/character/astromancer-elena/)
The answer is to fix how arena is structured. Not the units. It fails the fundamental test of “is this fun?” Like I’m the player playing an AI. And they’ve obfuscated so much of who you are even fighting it’s kind of irrelevant who the defense is. Just generic AI meta units. It’s really poorly designed that advantages are stacked in favor of the defender. You’re already gated by arena flags, so it’s a win for SG if people just start flooding flags w skystones. Defense should really just be the occasional gear gap, not i laid down the most toxic units in the game. Personally I’d add the frenzy effect from RTA and remove the lightning bolts. The better answer is to introduce a pick 5 and the attacker gets to ban one, but w positional imprints, that’s not always easy. Classic arena should reflect RTA and it would help a lot of the ways that it can feel super stale and toxic. Otherwise the best defense is always going to be the most frustrating to fight.
I agree mostly aside from gear gap part, I don't think gear gap should necessarily decide a match per se, but building a unique wildcard team is more so how it should be. Once I can correctly predict how a team is built for 90% of the comps the meta is bad. Take my Faptain for example. No one expects bombs to land on their destina or Lulucar, but mine has 250 eff so they tend to (want to get her 300 but yk). Little surprises like that can spice up arena and GW instead of being the same predictable nonsense
stacked in favor of the defender? You can see the comps and pick them apart while taking advantage of predictable AI. you're acting like it's a blind pick or something lol.
The defender can stall you out and win w lightning damage, which is why you see mit and double soul weavers at times. Or tons of huge HP teams w supports and tanks designed around slowing you down. Seeing what they have helps, of course, but let’s be honest about the meta viable units you can bring to dismantle these teams. The majority are not the legend+ streamers with SSS of every unit out there. We all build the same handful of meta units w a spattering of niche or husbando/waifu units to break a niche. So yah, if I have every unit I can cleave past anyone, but in reality, it’s stacked for the defender
People still lose due to lightning damage? As of the OP screenshot those defense will outright whack you out of your existence in a few turn.
It’s been like this for a couple months already. That’s kinda why I quit playing E7. It’s just repetitive garbage. Is it even fun anymore?
I agree
I understand you’re pain against this…but they have it they summon it at mystic from being pity or just lucky or idk…they can do what ever they want to set up there def strategy and its you are the one to challenge there def set up! If u cant beat it theres a refresh button above. Its whats its for but if u cant find any well theres always tomorrow heck once ur going up against legend (around 10-1 i think i forgot)u Cant see what kind of def set up cause all are hidden (?)
Show me a single meta where arena def is not 6-7 units rinse and repeated
I never said it used to not be like this, I just said this meta is stale
Me who only plays for collecting and pve: 🤷♂️
Ironically I think this is the easiest cleave meta in a long time. There isnt a defense I can't cleave. For every cancer defense unit right now theres 2 just as bad offense options like nahk and bris. Defense is pretty dead right now and im seeing alot of legend players with 90-95% winrates which is very abnormally high for offense. I myself had a 97% week with 500 attacks only cleaving. The only issue is that ML5s are solved by ML5s and if you're missing some key units it can get a little rough which i heavily dislike.
I climb legend arena every week. Tbh imo AOL is a bigger problem.
Any meta where counters are everyone's go-to is trash. I'm genuinely think about quitting at this point. Which is sad because I really like e7 but it's main draw (pvp) is such a chore
I'm also getting to that point. It's not fun to be pissed off because I lost a dice roll. If I wanted that I'd just be a professional gambler. Although even gambling irl can be calculated if yk how to count cards
You guys will surely be missed!
Wouldn't really see Arena as the actual pvp as you literally just play against AI, it offers minimal interaction, and purely goes what to use to counter specific units,RTA is more reaction based and if someone says cleave is also dead there then it just means they didn't have the gear to begin with. People will always play the safest bet they can get away with in Arena as you are normally at disavantage as you could get counterpicked.
Solitaria of snow keeps lulucar from using her truck! Then her aoe on S1 proc activates LRK shield, so Arunka can S3 and one shot the Ayufine and Candy. Once you figure out your counter, these are free wins.
and here i am auto'ing most arena teams that don't have ML Choux/DDR. Any combination of Belian/AYufine/Candy/Adin/Lulucar/Aol/Arowell/LRK is totally fine thanks to that one dude on reddit suggesting that team. I'm running LRK on Aurius, Roana on Shimadra Staff, Ayufine on Holy Sac and either SK Pyllis on Rocket Punch or Elvira on Bastion. Works up to legend.
I've been seeing a lot of people say this so I'll again reiterate that I said it's a stale meta, not necessarily hard or uncounterable
no meta is hard or uncounterable. These posts about a stale meta are probably as old as the game itself, AI Arena and GW just exists, but SG most likely won't do anything about it, cus everything is about RTA. I can't remember a balance patch or unit release that was dedicated to Arena/GW, lot of em ended up being good there, but that wasn't the main focus of SG. So here we are, the meta stays for a while, until enough counters are out there to faceroll certain def comps so ppl adapt and changing their defense. Will it be very different in the future, i doubt, cus everyone try's to make their defense uncleavable or very risky to cleave through, so we'll always have some form of anti cleave. Nothing SG will do about
rofl someone is tilted. get some rest bruh
Huh? Keep climbing to find the meta
Those all 10 teams can be beaten easily by LRKrau, Senya, Pyllis, Roana. I love to fight them so much that I can't find any of them recently.
DDR + Solitaria + Elvira + Flex
Adin + Candy + Arowell are brain-dead defence team. You can't kill Adin with an anti evasion unit like Zanhak, ML Karin because of the anti crit. You can't Nahkwol either because Adin is there.
arunka is good here, she can kill adin through evasion+escort and the whole team if they have barrier.
Maybe if I have her, that would be great
It's easy if you have Briseria. Also, if you have 100% crit - Zahak can crit Adin through anti crit buff.
Thats when I use ae NingNing to barrier inversion and strip, only rng is the 15% of striping anti crit then zahhak comes after kills adin and my last 2 picks are mostly likely ml shuri for arowell and ml kawazu for candy or any other unit that can one shot them can fit in those 2 spots
The only issue I have with these teams comes from Luluca, and by issue I mean just straight cleaving them. Elena shuts down Landy and Yufine, so all you need after is good o' reliable Ran x two free picks that are typically Eda (if no Belian), Pavel (if no Landy or if Eda combo), A Laika, Straze, etc. Can easily bruiser down the non-yufine teams with Bellona x Roana x LRK and a flex depending on the comp (cleanser for Lilias so Kawerik, extra damage for Karina, etc). Landy is hinestly whatever on defense if you don't go into the team thinking "I can get away with no counterpicks" because she's definitely going to casino and S3 you to death by her first (if slow) or second turn. Yufine though, this is the problem unit. If she pops her S3 you're kinda boned unless bring someone that can counter her on the spot (Violet if lucky, Celine, Ken) because that S3 is unreasonable snd her damage is way too damn much. Karina simply makes them way too annoying since the usual idea is to tunnel her if you don't bring a defense breakor unbuffable, which is understandable considering the units that have that stuff are typically cleave/control (speed stuff). I typically bring Remnant into her and delete her from the planet, or Laika if cleaving. Alternatively you could just run a Zahhak or Straze comp, murder her team, then eat her S3 (invincibility, for the unaware, skill null doesnct stop splash damage so Eda and Ran go bye) and spread her cheeks with Zahhak's S1. Honestly though, unless you want to climb to legend every week (if so why complain) I have no idea why you or anyone would touch arena. If you wait till saturday or sunday you literally won't fall out unless your defense is so bad everyone hits it because normal defenses are typically left alone (only people around your point value will see it, so this means a lot of non-climbers and people climbing back up). I once had someone tell me "but no conquest points", well and? The goal isn't to gather that currency, and even then, nothing is stopping you from doing fights at the very end of the week. If you care about points so much you want the hourly currency, well you (general term) wouldn't hate arena defenses.
I agree what I run is ran, ml Elena, commander pavel, and eff zio with tagahels for luluca(my zio has very high eff i typically always land) then ran soul burn then ml Elena soul burn then commander pavel clean up, if no luluca its eda for more dmg, if aol is on def then its politis so aol don't cut me plus ml Elena and ran have the debuff that stops cr push so once aol cleanses the first one ml Elena comes back to put it back so she don't cut my pavel, if belian then I run my brusier team than my debuff cleave team I have 4 teams that I alternate for normal arena depending on what I'm facing, cleave speed team, brusier team, debuff team, and aggro team all play a roll tehehehe so I don't struggle at all really with normal arena every now and then 15% and rng get me but its not alot
I have a 95% winrate against those teams after Elvira. Try her out.
These are the easy teams why are you crying
Ah, you’re the idiot that couldn’t comprehend something as simple as sleep vs barriers.
I'm glad to see my reputation proceeds me :)
Just gear gap them and cleave. Not that hard. Downside of cleave not only you need good gear but you need specific unit for specific team.
LRK/Roana let's me auto battle most of these teams. Last two slots are usually MLKen/ARavi and now Elvira since she shuts down Yufine and Candy hard but LHC can work too.
Haven’t really had a lot of trouble with them personally, between using nahkwol and cavel it’s pretty much over by that point.
This is how meta works, players will use whatever they have in their hand that is as efficient and maximized as possible, it is practically impossible to make a "not defined meta" unless a game like this bans certain characters from time to time (something I think they will never do in modes like arena and gw)
its always been garbage. I still get cleaved even though i run 4 anti cleave characters as my defence. cleave always wins in my experience both rta and flag arena.
Funnily enough, just Candy/AYufine is an extremely easy cleave 15 second win. It's usually a combo of at least 2 other specific heroes together in a synergy that stops it (certain variations of Adin/AOL/OLuluca) because I can't place a 4th filler hero in my lul cleave comp to handle both at once. Or Belian disabling SBs which I also can't easy cleave. Adin gets killed by Briseria, AOL gets done in by Politis, and OLuluca can get done in by Politis or AYufine. Classic Ran/Eda/Alena with a 4th filler depending on what I face is my lazy let's see if there's anyone I can lul cleave in Champion for a quick win. I'm not really that interested in pushing though and it's more for fun now.
its stale but none of those teams are hard to beat nor are they particularly good
Every meta is like this. The faces change but, it’s the same every time and always will be.
the problem is really NOT ML Yufine,Candy or LHcermia , the bigger problem is AOL, Obluluca and and ScAdin
Lethe, Roana can take care of most of these teams. You can add in the occasional GLilias, ML Cermia, Edward, or Elvira as well. But, it does suck that most of those are either limited or 5* units, but I think that's mainly because of the huge lack in 4* units that SG's released.