User blog:Ruhrohshingo/Challenge Arena Tips

Challenge Arena can be anywhere between intriguing, irritating, and monotonous; but there are some things you can count on or at least consider to go farther than you might have initially thought.

Here are some things to consider for the Challenge Arena:

General Advice

 * You've probably seen the general pattern, but at the start of the CA season most of your reset matches at first (with the grassy background) will be against fairly weak opponents and very forgiving battle conditions.  The battle conditions get more stringent and opponent level increases as you win matches and ultimately culminates with a bonus chest containing either Silver or Golden CA coins (extra Rainbow coins were removed).  Once you get the bonus chest, the difficulty "resets" to a degree.
 * In very long CA stints over the course of one day, the difficulty "reset" after each bonus chest becomes less forgiving.  In Rookie League it's entirely possible to face level 200+ opponents with nasty battle conditions like Empty BB Gauge Start.  Fortunately, this only happens once you're ranking in toward Tier 10 or "higher".
 * Semira is a very good friend.  A Semira of any rarity is a useful asset with even just a BB since any of the conditions that can be inflicted will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the opponent's formation.  Paralysis is obviously the best status to inflict, but Curse can be very useful in the event of matches like Empty Brave Burst Gauge Start since it will reduce the number of enemies who could potentially BB if they fill gauges sooner than your formation.  Poison is not incredibly desirable as it robs you of gaining any HC and significantly less BC than if your formation had attacked the following turn.

Rookie League

 * If it's the start of a new CA season rotation and you're leveled sufficiently, you can get by after a few "warm up" rounds with a small team with a higher Brave Bonus to rack up points much quicker than playing it safe.

To be continued (limited time)

Battle Conditions
This section will discuss general strategies for mitigating or using the various Battle Conditions that are applied each match. Though League agnostic, it's better to read this section being cognizant of any difficulties discrepancies of your current league standing.

-X Elenent Advantage: These are usually very nice to have unless the element advantage happens to be an element that the opponent formation predominantly has. At worse, this would be something like "Water Element Advantage" and the opposing formation is a mono water squad. Element advantage most noticeably gives all characters (friend and foe) a max HP boost, but this also boosts all their other stats as well. If you get this condition, don't forego mitigating elemental disadvantages (such as going at a mono Thunder formation with a mono Water squad just because it's Water Element Advantage) - this is only feasible if the enemy formation is mono and weak to the element with the advantage or the formation is neutral to the advantaged element.

-Gendered Advantage: This is probably the most friendly condition in CA since it allows use of formations built around characters like Hadaron, Krantz, Haile, Quaid, Michele, and any of the Elemental Legends characters (Selena, Atro, etc.) that can fully utilize the advantage without sacrificing any Leader Skill requirements. An example of this would be a Male Unit Advantage using a Krantz lead and filling in the rest of the formation with characters like Tridon, Rhoa, Avant, and Duran to satisfy his Leader Skill requirement. Gendered Advantage has the same effect as Elemental Advantage - the gender (or lack of) with the advantage gets a boost to all stats. In terms of mitigating advantage when the opponent has it, you can offset it by playing characters of the advantaged gender but with elemental superiority.

-No Brave Burst: This sounds like a death sentence, but in later matches or intermediary matches this is actually really useful. At higher tiers this effect can be useful since it gives you less to consider in the event the opponent strikes first; which if no one can BB on either side, your squad can't be wiped out in the first turn. No BB condition is also useful when you are trying to build a full bench of characters who can BB since often times using a formation of 3 of 5 characters with BB and 2 with partial or empty BB will have lopsided results - like only having BB for everyone or at worst, you end the match with 3 of 5 characters with SBB or even BB.

No BB is really only harmful when you are facing Hadaron lead because the first turn usually ends up with the enemy formation losing one or two (maybe 3 or 4 if you are outclassing their formation that much) characters and some of the others injured. When the enemy gets their first turn it'll usually hurt very very much for you and the subsequent turns become an increasingly uphill struggle as the Hadaron LS boosts their attack and defense as they take more damage. In this situation, there is no really good way to cut your losses.

-Empty Brave Burst Gauge Start: This, to me, is the worst possible condition though some people see it as BB waiting to happen, it's also a race to the top to see who BB's first and likely takes the match. This particular condition is really nasty in Summoner League up since the Opponent Strikes First can really be disadvanteous. Your best bet may be to use a lead whose LS will either boost BB on attack/spark/critical or boost BB when damage taken or even fill rate like Bestie. However you can get characters who can BB faster and in larger quantity (and thus higher probability), the better.

-more to come

By no means am I an expert on this - these are just the things I have noticed and the strategies that have worked very well for me (at least to the point where I see CA daily as more of a boring chore than anything, but those rewards...le sigh). If you have a better strategy, share it so we can all learn something!