I was getting 50-100k teams in bronze, so it's not just you that is unlucky at least. I'm currently between high S1 and low S2, and the only way I've found of winning is to reroll, over and over and over again. Carefully check the enemy team for counters to yours, and pick only the fights you're reasonably sure you can win.

It's an absolute chore and sucks the fun out of it, but it can be done. My biggest fear right now is that it seems to be getting progressively worse no matter what tier I'm in. My opponents are getting stronger, I'm mostly not. At this rate, I fear no number of arena refreshes will let me find a battle I'm even remotely optimistic about. Right now, I get maybe 1 battle per 2-3 refreshes. It's easy to say that I'm just not "good enough" for S2 and that's where the problem is (and I'm perfectly willing to accept that argument), but it makes no difference if I'm there or in B1, it's still the same level of opponents. 

Yeah, I know what you mean.

May I ask you, what level and power you are @EGDNIT?

I changed some parameters and it seems, that the only thing that correlates are my player power and level. At the moment, it seems like every opponent has +/- the same level and power as myself. The teams used, the team strength and if you are on a winning or a loosing streak doesn't seem to have that much impakt. 

If thats really what it comes down to, this system s**ks. You probably could optimize your enemys trough forcing your power to get low, by selling every unused item and burning every unused hero, but I think this would be a bad mechanic for a game, in which collecting is one core feature.

It would depend on when exactly you were in Silver IV and what team you are using, but it's very possible that the answer is number 1. 

Briefly summarized, something like six months ago, arena was crazy difficult for everyone except absolute top players up in high gold or plat. Even with a full 60 well-synergized team, you might not be able to get out of bronze. But then, quite suddenly, people started getting entire screens of super-easy opponents, which were assumed to be bots because they were absurdly weak for the tier they were in. Thanks to that, almost any active player with an even semi-decent team could rapidly progress, from bronze into silver or even gold - by just refreshing until the next screen of 10 free wins. Possibly this is the situation you were in before, getting to Silver IV thanks to such super-easy wins - as well as wins over the other new players who were also shooting up for the same reason. It became a self-reinforcing mechanism that lifted almost all active players and made it dramatically easier to get wins and medals. 

Nowadays, at the gold IV tier where I am, we still get a huge number of such super-easy opponents but usually not a full screen anymore. But it seems that in lower tiers, it's no longer the case or at least very rare - which also becomes a vicious cycle, because people in low gold can no longer maintain their position there and drop into silver, people in silver drop back into bronze, etc. 

Wow, okay, that sounds really familiar. Thats really what I remember it to be and the time of 6 month could very well match.

I remember winning a lot suddenly, I tought this would have come due to changes in my team. I mean, i defenetly progressed in the time but that's probably what made the difference.

Still, is there any known strategy to break out of this and at least come back to silver? @L9753 

I'm level 47, my total power is 180k and my arena team is 56k of those. I have a lot of spare champions in storage that I'm using/saving for faction crypts that heavily inflate my total power, but in practice they couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. My arena team consists of Athel, Madame Serris, Spirit Host and Shaman, which is basically the strongest team I can put together. I should probably replace Shaman with something but I don't really have anything better, and I need more speed gear for High Khatun to replace Spirit Host, otherwise I won't be able to compete with other speed teams anyway which makes the switch pointless and I'd rather have debuff immunity if I survive the first round (which the enemy almost always does desite the debuff/nuke combo).

And yes, I've gotten the distinct impression that matchmaking is either based on your level or your total power, which would be ridiculously absurd as neither even remotely represents your potential in the arena. I'm consitently facing opponents twice my size. For reference, for my current enemy roster in the arena, the team with the lowest power is 116% of mine. The strongest is 209%. The average is 165%. Most of them have legendaries, some 2 or 3. The smaller ones are all, except one, speed teams (better than mine, so no hope there). Out of them, I chose 1 fight and won it. I might have a chance on one other, but it's so low that I don't plan on risking it.

Like I said, maybe I'm just higher in the rankings than I should be, and that'd be fine if it is the case. It's a pretty simple concept that matchmaking should be based on your ranking, and ranking should, as it usually is, be based on your performance. Win every fight easily, you rank up until you're at a somewhere around 50/50 ratio where you stay until you improve. Clearly, that's not how it works in Raid though.

Was it entire screens of easy wins, then other screens of way tougher opponents? This would have been pretty noticeable - though as mentioned, even your normal, non-'bot' opponents would also have become noticeably weaker because they'd have climbed up thanks to the 'bots' themselves. 

In any case, that's not going to help you now. Some people have these theories about artificially pushing down your total power by emptying your vault, but personally I'm not a big believer of that - the obvious way to get to silver is to build a better team. That doesn't mean you need legendaries, but you do need the right champs going in the right order and with sufficient speed - and most or all of them will need to be level 60. 

@EGDNIT HK shouldn't replace Spirithost, she should replace Shaman. Shaman may have some use in dungeons for revives, but she's pretty useless in arena - if you're going to use revivers in arena, they should have more to offer and in any case, that doesn't fit in your general team tactic which is a speed nuke. 

Oh I've considered that, but Shaman has saved my bacon more than once by being able to revive either Athel or Serris that provide most of the damage (or damage amplification in Serris' case, not to mention buff removal). I can go first already, just not against other speed teams. I think HK wouldn't really add anything to my kit at this point, whereas Shaman does as long as I can't be sure I'll be able to nuke the enemy before they move.

Problem is, as I said, I don't have enough champions to choose from as of yet, and I don't have good enough gear to make Athel more deadly for a speed nuke.

Indeed.

I know this has been discussed a lot (at this moment, I'm reading myself trough the "Arena Medals Bottleneck"-Post) but could you tell me, if there is any big gamebreaker in my arena-team? :)

I use: 

High Khatun Lvl 50 with speed gear as the leader

Kael Lvl 60 with speed- and devine speed gear

Elhain lvl 50 with 2 devine speed sets and 1 cruel set

Septimus lvl 60 with speed and cruel sets

My strategie is not exactly what you would call creative - but it follows the basic rules I belief. Get speed by Khatun, Nuke with Kael and Elhain (Elhain is acting first, so that Kael can speed up even more by getting the kills) and then end it with Septimus. Trough his damage-output and his extra turn, he can end multiple targets, even without an actual AOE-Skill.

I start most fights and there are some, that I win without even getting a single hit. And others... well not so much.

To be honest: I neglectet my item management quite a bit so I could make a bit of progress there I believe.

Well, HK would speed you up, it's that simple... the aura already gives a small boost compared to Spirithost's aura, but then if you make sure she's faster than all your other champs, then her speed/TM boost will make sure that as long as your HK goes first, your whole team can go first. Obviously in this scenario SH is putting the increase attack with her opening move, not the block debuffs - that's for her second turn, if any. 

It's probably better to substitute Warmaiden (or another AOE decrease defense option, if you have any) instead of Elhain. If she can put decrease defense on all opponents while doing some damage herself, Kael's nuke after her will do far more damage, then Septimus can still clean up indeed. You'll want to use that AOE decrease defense in dungeons as well. 

Yes, HK would make me faster, but I wouldn't hit any harder. I wouldn't necessarily need to against other speed teams, but other speed teams are faster than I am with my current equipment so that's a no-go either way. I've tried using HK, but it has not been working out. Maybe if I can find another good nuker I will give it another go as then I might be able to actually take out multiple opponents, but as it stands, I can't go full speed successfully. Without that damage, I'd just throw away sustain for nothing. 

Your team is pretty decent, but yeah I'd swap out Elhain for an AOE DEF down. It'll end up similar to mine, albeit at a lower scale - I use Khatun, Bigun, Abbess, Royal Huntsman.

Wait  till  you  get  into  tag  team,  if  you  think  classic  arena  is  bad then  you  aint  seen  nothin  yet.  

Edit: I don't know why, but I totally forgot to mention Warmaiden in the list of AOE-champs I have, we just talked about her... And I even have two of them. 🙈 

Well, I have in fact a few other AOE-heros, but I didn't thought that they really fit.

I have:

Epic: Golden Reaper, Alika, Dark Elhain, Dark Athel, Ultimate Galek, Flesh-Tearer, Warden

Rare: Fellhound, Flinger, Coldheart, Hound Spawn, Fleshmonger, another Kael, Lamellar, Galek, Gladiator, Slayer, Bloodpainter, Hospitaller, Diabolist, Crimson Slayer

And what you should know, I really just today got Scyl of the Drakes 😁

After thinking about this and the thing I read in the other threads, I reconsidered my possible teams and thought: Maybe replacing Elhain with Scyl of the Drakes and maybe even Septimus with Alika? Alika should be a good counter to other quick-nuke-teams trough her skill to increase the cooldown of every enemy skill with a chance of 75%, buying me at least another round, if she hits first. SotDs AOE-stun is also very powerful (IF it works though, the chance is just 36%) and since being a def-champ, she should also (possibly) survive a nuke and is a healer-slower hybrid afterwards.

I would love to hear what you think about these changes.🙂 Yet, what should be considerd is that my Elhain is pretty much powerd up (all skills on max, 5 masteries and the high elf artifacts I have are superior to the Barbarian-artifacts) and the same (except for the skills, but masteries and artifacts) is true for Septimus. Masteries shouldn't be that big of a deal tough...

Talking of items: Do you think I should go all in for speed, or mix up speed and damage items? Also, should I go for accuracy at SotD and Alika?

Another thing: Should I rather go for devine-speed or for swift parry from the forge? I think that divine speed is the better option, since you can apply two sets in 4 slots when swift parry only allows one.

And last but not least: What about more "fancy" sets like Daze or Retaliation? I think, optimizing one aspect is more effective than being a jack of all trades, but master of none. Still, I would really like to hear your thoughts on this topic.

So, this really were a lot of questions! I hope you don't mind answering them, your help is very appreciated! :) 

I already am in tag team arena, but I totally ignore it. Every week, I collect my gems and buy an Anchiant Chard on the basar and that's it.

Since I don't need it to get on with the missions (at least till now), I dont't see why I should waste my time there.😟

Well I have been playing for about 3 months, have a total "Power" of in excess of 750K and can easly field a team in Arena of over 100K.  BUT even with that I cannot get out of bronze.  I have spent over $1,000.00 purchasing 6 star armour, Silver to level up armour to 16, and chiockens to get champs to 60.  Quite frankly I am about to call this game a BAD investment of time and money, and go back to playing world of warships where at least I can have fun.  The biggeswt joke to me is that in "Progress Missions" I need to advance to silver level.  I have been trying for a month and can get as high as Bronze 4 and then get knocked back to 3.

Plenty of free wins in there though. I just refresh, scan for level 1 teams or similar, and get 3 free wins. I can usually use up the daily 10 tokens, and often put a big dent in the 10 from the advanced daily quest.

@Moe474747 I don't think you should bring any of those champions on your arena team - but you should get Scyl to 60 asap and use her in all your dungeon teams, she's a huge help and that AOE stun is the least of it. Her passive healing, her revive and her turn meter control are all at least as important. And then you'll probably want to put her on one of your tag team arena teams, sure, but for the main arena, she just doesn't really fit in a speed nuke team. She could fit into some tanky teams, but you don't have the other champions you'd need for that. 

Alika is a bit more suited for arena, but I don't really think she'd work better than the ones already mentioned. Although under some specific circumstances she could be useful, especially given her force affinity, most of the time you're likely to have higher priorities than her. 

As for gear, remember that stats matter more than sets. You shouldn't use any of those fancy sets unless they have the right stats. Especially with expensive crafting sets like Swift Parry, you're likely to have few pieces, so the odds to have 4 pieces that all have good stats and combine well on the same champion aren't too high, until you're much further in the game. On Divide Speed you only need 2 pieces to be good, so sure, higher odds that you can find a use for that, but the point remains, don't use them if the stats aren't good. 

Depending on how much you want to focus on arena right now, you may be best off just farming a Warmaiden and ranking her up. She's not terribly useful outside of this one role, but she is pretty good at doing the AOE DEF down in Arena.