So I’ve been playing some arena lately. Currently level 27 (trying to get to the shadow aura) and depending on the time of day I’m somewhere in division 1 or two of eternal league. I am using a build that can beat any other build in arena but has terrible AI and can be beat by probably any build in division 1 and 2 of eternal league. I’m sharing my build here to solicit some feedback on ideas for improvement. Hopefully this will help some of the newer arena players as well.
As of about less than an hour I was able to get to rank 1 again in eternal league.
The build I am using is based on the warrior battle mage build. A few weeks ago some people were sharing the basics of the build on the forums.
I took what i could from the posts and set out to copy the build as much as I could. I changed a few things as I tested it and finally settled on my current setup. Below is the current build. I am sharing screenshots of the pve and pvp values to make it easier for newer players to see the roll values.
Main Weapon - Warrior Mutiny Lance base
Offhand - Warrior Eternal Vibroedge base
Chest - Wizard Scoundrel’s Garb base
Head - Warrior Masochist’s Helm base
Ring - Warrior Stone of Nadroji base
Amulet - Wizard Eternal Divination base
Pet - Eternal Stitch
Trophy - Eternal Bloodless Victory
Stats - All points into Strength
Playstyle:
So there are 5 main categories of AI opponents in the Arena. Here is how I play vs them with my build:
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Immortal Build - This build has low hp, usually around 30k, with high regen and low base damage. The way to kill this build is to be able to create enough spike damage to overcome the regen. In arena, there is a power bonus after each draw (not sure if this starts after the first round or after a few rounds). Spike damage from my build comes from a combination of vortex and several scalp hitting at the same time and some critical attack procs. 4 draws is the soonest I have been able to kill an immortal build. I usually shoot for 8 draws to consistently get enough spike damage. I usually kite the AI for 7-8 rounds while holding down the Scalp (OH special attack) button and using the dispel and silence specials of the trophy. Starting around round 6 my build will have enough power to kill the immortal AI. After 8 draws i will either dance around the AI while spamming scalp or if I’m lazy I’ll just stand next to the AI and spam. 3 players in the top 10 of eternal league (posted at the top of this post) use this build.
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Stand and spam AI - These are AIs that usually stand at a set distance from you and spam their attacks. I usually just get close enough to them where my Toss lands right where they are standing. I spam Toss and 90% of the time I’ll kill them before they kill me. There are two builds in the top 10 that use this AI and only 1 of them has a chance of killing me before I kill them. I am about 75% vs this AI and 100% vs the other other one.
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Charging AI - This AI is constantly charging at you. Some builds proc additional attacks (like storm). Some use enigma as well. 3 players in the top 10 use this AI. 2 of them I can just stand still and spam Scalp until they die. The third I kite them in a wide circle and spam Scalp.
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5-10 yards away AI with Skulldraga - This AI will stay just close enough to you to hit you with their attacks and will drop a Skulldraga. I will kite them away from their Skulldraga and then hit hem with scalp until they die.
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Easy builds - This is the rest of the AI’s that I have seen in arena. This is a mix of a variety of builds but their hp and/or damage is low enough that i just run up to them and spam Toss or Scalp until they die. 1 person in the top 10 actually fell into this category and I think they must have accidentally locked in a test build or PvP build or something.
So how good can this build be? Very good when played but horrible as an AI. When I stopped playing to write this post this was the top 10 of Eternal League Division 1:
And here are some screenshots. Please keep in mind that this is not always the result, but com’on why would I share those…
And for good measure, number 11 and 12
So there you have it. I would love some feedback on the build and what I can do to improve. I did try to replace the Crit Chance and Crit Damage affixes with Armor but found that immortals took longer to kill due to the loss of crit damage so I switched back. I tried using a non-eternal Vibroedge but found the loss of the eternal base damage and extra 4500 or so weapon damage was not worth losing to add customized affixes (5000 shock, 7500 hp, nova mythic).
