I guess mine are too. But that’s only because we’re trying to help improve on a product we’ve spent money on.
If I knew how the game was going to go, I’d not have spent anything.
Retrospect is a wonderful thing.
Agree the frustration of dealing with DB in the arena pushes you to game breaking point. For example you take the fight to DB and eliminate it but a barrier then makes it impossible for your weakened team to win against DB’s allies. Basically if DB is an opponent: there is really only one sensible option: retreat rather than waste time in a battle you are most likely to lose. Even more sensible don’t bother with the arena while DB is a defence option. There is no balance in any arena contest currently with DB as a defence option.
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Okay, I’m not sure what level you are – and I’ve been as vocal as anyone that DB is leagues stronger than any other hero weapon – but saying there’s no option but retreat just isn’t true. I plan for DB now when I play the arena; it’s harder, yes, but I still play, and I can still win. You have to focus on knowing you can take it out. Someone way upthread posted a list of troops that can help, and that made me realize how defeatist I was being. There are troops that can take out DB. There are hero weapons that do double or even triple damage based on color, where one or two fires will do the trick. I’m not saying that I win all the time, and I’m not saying it’s easy, but I can still pull off a perfect run. Not every time, but enough that it’s worth trying. DB is overpowered, but it’s not utterly unbeatable.
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There are several posts in this thread detailing weapons and strategies that work, but the specific one I had in mind was this:
Again, I’m in favor of removing it from defense, but saying “there is literally no option except retreat” simply isn’t true.
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It is true for people under lvl 200.
Once you reach lvl 200 you can be matched with players of any level over 200.
It wasn’t a problem in arena, because everyone has the same troops and bonus, traits,… don’t apply. It is now a problem with DB.
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The following question is asked of you with serious respect. Your suggestions of counters to DB are all great -if you get one of those cards - to support your hero. However; what is your approach to DB in the arena without any reasonable support on your team and we get those sort of arena teams all the time.
We can all compete against DB with Lava Elemental- what are our options when we dont have reasonable attacking support? Those are the arena matches that I find corrosive. The real frustration comes because players will take on DB with whatever terrible team they get- we dont want to walk away from DB- but too many arena combinations that the player ends up having to use -while they are okay against anything but DB in a series of matches -once you confront DB twice with a team without any reasonable heavy support like you list- you get flogged- you try hard- you hang in and often
for a long time -but you get flogged and your arena run is cut short [ and the rewards you were there for are reduced].
So seriously and with full respect to you because I use/do use the troops you suggest , which are all potentially great allies against DB. But the question remains: what are your options with DB when you dont have a ‘reasonable’ team to counter DB? [ Not including luck because any team can have its day]
I know exactly what you mean – sometimes you start the arena and it’s like the game is trying to destroy you, with the troops it offers. Not the least bit of help in sight, and worse, it’s not even remotely something you can control.
That’s where the hero weapon choice becomes essential. I don’t have Dawnbringer, but I’ve used the following with varying degrees of success:
[NOTE: the numbers will be off, because I was looking in my weapon tab, and the stats are always lower in the arena. Eg, Runic Blade does 24 dmg on a first hit in PvP but only 14 in the arena.]
Dust and Sand - brown/yellow - knock a Target troop to the front & reduce armor by 19 [pick someone who uses DB’s colors]
Fiery Claw - red/green - 21 damage, doubled if they use Blue Mana
Hammer of Urskaya - red/brown - 26 dmg + half to adjacent, enrage first ally [target DB then go for skulls]
Ice Arrow - blue/green - 21 dmg, double if they use Red Mana
Kingslayer - red/blue - 22 dmg + 7 more if they have >10 attack
Mang - red/brown - destroy an enemy’s armor, do 19 damage, gain attack based on destroyed armor [again, target DB then go for skulls]
Null Sphere - brown/purple - reduce an enemy’s magic to 0 [wonderful, but needs 18 to cast, so it’s a race]
Pan’s Lute - yellow/green - drain Mana of 1st and last enemy, allies gain 1 magic
Serve and Protect - blue - gain 19 armor, all allies gain barrier
Spider Totem - green - 22 dmg, drain Mana, and web an enemy
Thingamabob - blue/green - 22 damage to enemy + adjacent, boosted by submerged [if and only if at least one ally submerges himself]
Thorodin - blue - 23 dmg + half to adjacent, boosted by ally Giants [if and only if at least one ally is a giant]
Warlord’s Battlecry - red - 20 dmg, boosted by enemy’s attack
Some of these you get for hitting 40 of a certain color; others are rewards for mastering certain classes. So these aren’t available to newbies, but by level 200 you should have one or two of them, I think. I decide which one based on what colors my allies are using and general troop synergy. Some work better than others.
This isn’t even mentioning the best weapons, found in the soulforge, which do triple damage based on Mana color. If you create a dark sword, it can one hit both DB and Runic Blade. It costs 1k souls, 50 gems, 2 celestial and 200 amethyst - not cheap, but not even close to DB levels of expensive, either.
You fill your hero, take out DB before it fires, and then use your lame crew to pick off the rest of the enemies. It’s not foolproof, it’s not guaranteed, it takes work, but it’s doable.
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Some of those enemies aren’t lame at all, though.
Add: while building my team I have to remember that every yellow troop/weapon I field will be used to add to DB damage.
Also, unlike PVP, you cannot see if you are going to face DB in a given battle. Some of those weapons are cumbersome.
It is. It’s unnecessarily painful.
On a positive note, I’d add Spider Knight to our list. This woobie damages and webs an enemy for a very little cost.
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@Courtaud - again, I’m in favor of removing it; I’m just explaining options that can help in the meantime.
Okay. After you said this, I remembered that when I played Arena as a newbie, sometimes it would go “not this person” for random silly reasons (name is too long, etc) and redraw.
Which means the ability is there, for the game to make a quick check and then turn someone down as a potential enemy team. If level<200 for A and level>200 for B then discard and find next option.
So it seems like the way to fix this is to set up another one of those. If level<500 for A and weapon=Dawnbringer for B, then discard and find next option.
Or if level<1000 for A. Or if weapon!=Dawnbringer for A. Or if level<10000 if we want to remove it for everyone. Something like that. Pass over and pick the next team instead. Don’t go changing the weapons or teams anyone selects, just find the next option down the list.
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Maybe I’m having a lucky streak but I’m seeing less DFB lately.
A stealthy fix wouldn’t be out of
question.
I understand this 
but still we have a lot less control than in PVP.
I trusted you. 2nd and 3rd battle were DB. That was a quick Arena run 
Must be luck.
“Never tell me the odds”.
I’m really sorry!
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Good idea for a temporary fix.
But removing it completely from the defense teams or reworking the are would be better in the long term.
I am lvl 1200. I don’t have problems defeating DB. I have DB. But playing arena with it or against it is not fun.
Arena was interesting because it provided a challenge. It was all about strategy, not about bonus or stats. With DB it is only about casting fast. No challenge. No skill needed. No interest. It is only boring.
My regular comment on DB as a defensive option in the arena- it plain and simply does not belong in the arena as a defensive hero. It completely unbalances the arena. It constantly belittles a players best efforts to counter it. No element of a game [ in this case DB in the arena as a defence option] should constantly dump on players like DB does. Its long overdue for a fix.
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I don’t think there’s a good way to remove it from defense teams. Excluding the whole team would severely diminish the draw pool, and replacing Dawnbringer with a random weapon would just make that team a clown fiesta.
The most consistent approach would be to see the hero as Epic troop, in continuation of the Common, Rare, Ultra-Rare picks. You get free choice of weapon up to Epic rarity, Legendary and Mythic weapons being excluded. This would fit very well with the original intent of Arena, a game of skill rather than progression. A new heroic Arena mode could offer an Epic, Legendary and Mythic pick, with unlimited weapon choice for the hero.
Unlikely to happen though, considering that simple promised changes like the unique third trait for Dragon Soul have been gathering dust for more than half a year now. Besides, any restrictions to Arena are bound to cause some amount of unhappiness, so it’s a topic best avoided.
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I cannot see how some changes in the Arena’s defenses may cause more unhappiness than the present situation.
Unless someone is positively happy because now Arena is giving less rewards to other players?
I just got back from Christmas vacation and don’t feel like reading everything but the Dev response was just another dodge.
“Oh, but it will just shift the problem down to Runic Blade!”
That’d be cool but I myself have discussed Runic Blade at least 3 or 4 times in this thread, and so has just about everyone else, and so far the group consensus is “Actually Runic Blade is kind of fun to play against, keep it pls”.
In short: just like Pharos Ra, there’s more interest in “shutting the players up with some kind of diversion” than “reading a thread and thinking about a solution that makes the game better”.
TL;DR for devs:
- We don’t like Dawnbringer on defense. Drop it.
- We like Runic Blade, Black Manacles, and several other weapons on defense. It’s OK if you leave them. There has to be a “hard” weapon. Dawnbringer is too hard.
- We don’t give a snot about Dawnbringer on offense. No one’s forcing people to craft or use it. If they whine it makes offense too easy, tell them to get their thumbs out of their mouths and use a different weapon.
- Please use arguments and discussion that aren’t answered by those three points.
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Runic Blade is not a problem. It never has been a problem and chances are it never will be a problem.
(I know that’s basically what you said but I want to say again for the umpteenth time)
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Why? The teams that you face in arena are random teams, not the troops that your opponent has chosen. As a consequence, the teams we are facing are too often ridiculous because they have no synergy.
Why not do the same with the weapon and pick a random legendary weapon instead?
I disagree.
Since many people have suggested to exclude legendary weapons from the arena, I have been trying to use epic weapons to see how good they were. Most of them are ridiculous and not viable at all. Even those that used to be good when they have been released.
Besides they have only one colour, which can be a problem if the rest of the troops don’t allow you to cover all the colours.
If we should have to pick a random weapon, it would have to be a legendary one. The only legendary weapon that represents a problem is Runic Blade. The others are just good or bad, but not OP.
That would be great.
They aren’t random, they are exactly the teams that other players have been playing Arena with. I used to play Arena in parallel with another player, we’d usually encounter each other and comment on our picks.
That would increase Arena difficulty quite a bit, you could no longer pick a weapon from your pool guaranteed to compensate missing colors/abilities. It’s definitely a “fairer” approach, provided you get to pick random weapons you don’t own. Not sure if the engine could currently handle this though.
They are sort of on par with the troops you get to pick. Or at least they used to be, the way newly released troops have been power creeping, some improvements wouldn’t be a bad move.
I haven’t looked at them too closely, some of the other new craftable ones could possibly also be considered somewhat overpowered for Arena.