Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd share with everyone my thoughts about the recent Fire Vortex Arena event. I plan to keep the discussion here civil, as I am sure there will be a few out there who may agree or disagree with my thoughts.

First off, it's the first actual Arena-based event we've ever had. And I'd like to say that it actually went better than I expected. These are my results at the end of the Arena event.

The team I used for the event was (in order):

• Kagutsuchi (B) - Muramasa
• War Rocket Cayena (L) (leader) - Medulla Gem
• War Rocket Cayena (L) - Medulla Gem
• Drake Angel Aisha (B) - Muramasa
• Red Blade Farlon (L) - Muramasa

Picture of team used - Farlon is lead here, since there's no difference between Cayena and Farlon's LS, and I tried changing around the orders of the team in a superstitious attempt to get them to fire off their BB's after losing 4 matches in a row.

Using this event as a base for future mono-elemental Vortex Arena events, I found that 50% elemental ATK up leaders are way more efficient than the other teams in Arena. While we've only done one event so far and we've still got tentatively 5 more events to go through, with maybe a possible Rainbow Arena event, Kagutsuchi/Aisha leads were rather inconsistent. They were good at the earlier ranks, but I found that once I got to Celebrated, I was beginning to lose more. The reason ATK up leaders were more effective was because unlike Arena, you sort of know what you are coming up against - that is, against other mono-Fire teams. Since you'd have the advantage of first turn, the 50% ATK up bonus, combined with items like Muramasa and Angelic Foil, allows you to easily kill 1, if not 2 units on the first turn. Losing a unit really sets a team back in Arena, and 50% ATK up bonuses allows you to achieve that more consistently. I originally started with Aisha as my leader, then tried Kagutsuchi for a while, before finally settling on Cayena.

That said, the best leader for this event looks have been Sacred Flame Lava. Here's comparing the secondary effects of Lava's, Lorand's and Vargas' Leader Skills for this particular Arena:

• Sacred Flame Lava grants your team an additional 1 BC at the end of each turn. It looks miniscule, but could be the difference that gets your Farlon (one of the most popular units for this Arena) his BB for the next turn to use in conjunction with Muramasa/Foil.
• Holy Flame Vargas would be the next best leader, stats wise he is only about as strong as Farlon, but he's got a somewhat great hit count and attack animation, as well as an multi target BB. 10% HP is also stronger than 10% DEF/REC - REC is a pointless stat in Arena.
• I'd rate Taskmaster Lorand as the second third best leader. 10% DEF/REC is better than 10% HP (debunked by /u/Xerte's math), Although Lorand's BB is single target, but as a unit, I rate him better than Vargas. Because his BB is single target, it fills really quickly, and his regular BB is more than capable of assassinating any perfectly healthy unit. Due to his inherently high base ATK stat, if he survives the first two turns, combined with Muramasa/Foil, he'll be able to severely weaken any unit he touches. This alone made him a great unit for this Arena in my opinion.
• Those three units happen to be the only units that have secondary effects for their LS outside of the 50% ATK up, but I rate any other units with 50% ATK up (like Cayena and Farlon) over Kagutsuchi or Aisha. These findings are further made concrete when I reached Exalted and Worshipped - most of my opponents from then on utilized mostly Lava leads. Keep in mind that the secondary effects of Lava, Vargas, and Lorand themselves are not signicant at best, therefore Cayena and Farlon would be equally great leaders.

In regards to a prediction on the Water Arena event, I am interested to see if the popular team of Felneus multiple Serins will lead the way. Fire had a form of a poor man's mono-elemental BB spam team in the form of Kagutsuchi multiple Cayenas, which is inferior to Water's, due to Kagutsuchi being an evolution tier lower than Felneus, and Cayena having less overall hit counts compared to Serin. Fire was sort of ran a little differently, since Fire had Farlon, which had fast BB fill, so it was sort of meant to be something like Kagutsuchi 2 Cayenas 2 Farlons, but Farlon doesn't hit hard enough without the 50% ATK LS (even with Muramasa/Foil) in my opinion.

I also think it's a nice touch that we don't lose anything on defense. This allows us to build to our milestone rewards faster. I've played a Facebook game in the past where you lost points on defense (even though your defense was out of your control, and controlled by an AI), and that was just frustrating as hell. Which leads me to my next point...

Away teams. There was a post some time back asking for players who have reached Worshipped to place away teams, so those who were at the lower end teams were able to gain more points off them, so that they could get Blaze themselves, since you are not penalized for losing on defense. I appreciate it is a nice touch for newer/less powerful players, but at the same time I can't help but worry if it will become a standard for the next 5 events for people to do this. Put simply, there will have been a fair few people who have invested time, and perhaps money, in order to prepare a team specifically for these Arenas, which they may scarcely, if ever, use again. If we're going to ask these people to set away teams for each event, I fear it will diminish their efforts. Just as an example, I could spend the 3 weeks leading up to the Arena event to prepare a team specifically for this, or I could use this time to train up units for FH5, and attempt to reach Worshipped status via people's charity. My only fear is the possibility of exploitation. I simply hope that it will not turn into a witch hunt if this becomes a standard, and a higher level/paying player is accused as selfish for not setting an away team.

The away teams issue could be solved by having tiered rewards. There is absolutely zero reason why Level 50 players should be matched with Level 120 players, and this is not even a fair grounds of battle. The rewards should have been tiered like the Victory Points tournament, where lower tiers get less appealing rewards, but also a little easier time getting Blaze. I believe in accessibility for all, but the rewards have to be equal to the effort spent. For example, perhaps a tier for Level 40 - 60 where a few rewards are downgraded compared to our current set of rewards - ie. Fire Kings instead of Fire Gods for example. I don't believe in deterring new players, ultimately I also don't want newer players to feel like they can't get this shiny reward dangling in front of them, and the older players saying newer players haven't invested enough time to get said rewards. One potential fix would be to have players have a reason to continue playing after achieving Blaze. For example, more Burst Frogs, or Summon Tickets at possible higher tiers than Worshipped.

Gumi also made the right move dropping the requirements for Blaze from 32k points to 15k points. As noted by /u/Xerte in the IRC chat earlier today, only 11 players actually broke the 32k points. It could have been different if it was still 32k - I estimate more players would have gemmed, but it would still be a very far reach for a large number of players, so props to Gumi for this change. Daily Rewards was a nice touch too - I certainly didn't expect them to give daily rewards for an Arena event. The only other small change I hope Gumi adds would be to have a button for claiming Daily Rewards separate to the Battle button, we all know how much problems it's caused at the end of Day 1.

I also should note that their matchmaking is a little wonky. I had 24k ABP at one point, and I was getting matched with someone who was in Celebrated rank. This shouldn't be happening, and could perhaps be improved.

I realize this is a long read, but those are my thoughts. If you've made it to the end, let me know your thoughts.