That could very well be true regarding the ramped up speedwise matching.  I'm go second so just don't notice possibly.

The day of reset i got hit hard and wondered if i would slip out of G4, it has eased off now, but im sitting on 3.3K points - and used to be higher than this by a good margin

It has definitely got harder but i guess those higher up the food chain than myself wont have noticed it yet.

The answer really is more farming gear, but i sympathise about how long that takes, on first day of dragon today i did 200 runs of dragon ...and got 2 pieces of speed gear with speed substat...which of course rolled flat defence instead. So 200 runs and not one half decent piece.

Once you get a reasonable speed (i am 331 speed and have been for months) ...it takes tens of thousands of runs to get improvement.

Just used the optimizer to check on what kind of speeds I can get to, did some gear rolling before hand as well.

Arbiter tops out at about 310.  I can get Umbral to around 240 with plenty of accuracy.  I'm not sure those speed numbers will get it done.

Anecdotal I know, but I just had this on an easy clear 10 page.

i

310 is a TON better than 275 or so, especially with a 30% speed aura.

I just checked the calc, and you'll want to speed Umbral up to 244 to not get cut. So just a couple glyphs and you're there. :)

From experience, 316 speed Arbiter is not enough for G4. Fighting similar teams, I get to go first perhaps 20-30% of the time. I live on mostly the single-champion teams and the occasional non-speed or speed team with a lesser aura. The not-bots are for the most part gone, though occasionally I do get a few teams like that on a page, although they are nowhere near the free wins of a even a month ago. I can still maintain a fairly decent win rate, but mostly because I'm extremely picky about who I fight.

I understand the frustration.  I had made it to Gold 4 for awhile but not long enough to obtain arbiter.  It just kept getting more heavy on the top tiers, eventually squeezing me out of Gold down into silver, and I think I am in much of the same company as I was in gold.  The speed battle for me is not even close.  Go ahead laugh but I am borderline 200 speed on some champs.  You need a whole advanced infrastructiure (champs, potions, gems, etc) to get what you need to get the speed game going.  Unless I keep paying silver to swap artifacts out every other day I can never hit the right combo to build up the speed, not without sacrificing everything else.

So at some point you have to say, call it quits?  Just depends on what goals you feel you can justify to yourself to keep playing.  The arena for me has definitely gotten much harder, the same teams have been festering for years and people have time to tinker with everything and make them stronger.  Of course, being F2P or not determines how good the champs you have can be.  I consider myself on the lowest rung of "luck" in the game.  I am blown away but what others have and what I do not have, but I try big with what I have, and if I only make it so far, than that is the way the cookie crumbles. But if you like playing the game for what it can do then that is how it goes.

But even at my level now I can still win some prizes here and there.

So what, you made it all, and got it all, and how does that change your life?

Arena has become so hard I lost when I attacked this gentleman today.

i

LOL I am so bad at arena, double TM boost i would not even try that team =)

Putting aside Zed's facetious comment - the real reason a team like that would ever win is Foli. Good chance that many teams will forget about him, and run their standard comp with a stun/provoke/freeze/etc, and just get oneshot by Foli as a consequence.

It was actually just the loading bug. I do wonder where a team like the one pictured came from and was able to get up to 3198 points in G4 when plat is at 3700 at the the time writing this.

Could be someone trolling and dropping points on purpose, or it can be something.

Close to 4k already tonight for the top of Plat.

i

Would love to pull a Glisea tomorrow. I really need her to compete up here with all the crazy speed Warlords.

Helluva job. How do you feel Plat arena is now versus the last time you were up there?

While it's pretty brutal up here all the time, it's extra brutal the past couple weeks. At least that's how I feel. I don't know if it's empowerment or the current meta or what, but it was super tough to climb up to where you see. 

Much easier to float at the edges of Plat rather than the utter dogfight it is to move about INSIDE of Plat. And that is even more true now that +4 Siphi JUST. WONT. DIE.

Sounds about right. :P

Good luck the rest of the grind. 

326  spd  arbiter  and  i  have  to  really  Pick  and  choose  my  g4   battles,  alot  of  refreshing,  alot  of  losses  tbh.

Yeah - Plarium spin - 'we won't be making super champions' 

Next release - 'We've given you (whales) the opportunity to make stupidly overpowered champions' 

While I understand some like the Arena and do not see any need for changes, I am really fearful of this Year of Arena improvments they are promiseing.

It has been my experience over 30 years of gaming that more often than not the players get the corrupt a wish treatment, were people present good ideas and the gaming company takes those ideas and just Fs them up example the new dup system that was put in. While better than nothing it sure did not help newer players as older players had alot more dups to fill guardian slots.

The improvements i think would help would be.

1. old defunt teams get cleared out of the system, example if you have not used your 5 daily tokens for 2 weeks to a month your defense teams gets cleared out, this would get people teams who no longer play out so they are not dropping teirs and screwing people who are playing.

2. find a better matching system than player power in Bronze and Silver, my 2nd account floats on low G1 and reset I call it Silver Hell as if I drop to Silver it takes a ton to get out because I am facing team harder than my main account in G4

3. Speed kills

Maybe have a speed cap per teir for the lower teirs, I am sorry but there is nothing worse for me than to have a fight and I never get to go because the other team had 1 stat that was better than mine.

PS

forgot the reset needs a rework of some kind as working all week to fall short of the next teir and then have to start from scratch all over is so fustrating , infuriating thing .

Just my thoughts I know not worth much but......

Your thoughts are worth a lot - there aren't many places to voice opinions, which is probably why Plarium ignores most of the disenting voices but we should never give up posting them

"example the new dup system that was put in. While better than nothing it sure did not help newer players as older players had alot more dups to fill guardian slots."

Em, yes the dup system is going to help people who have dups.  My experience is that as you play the game the number of dups increases, so naturally newer players will not benefit.  I suppose they could increase the odds of pulling dups so everyone would have better chanes of having dups, then more people would benefit from the dup system?  Or do you have another suggestion rather than  pointing out the obvious?

"old defunt teams get cleared out of the system, example if you have not used your 5 daily tokens for 2 weeks to a month your defense teams gets cleared out, this would get people teams who no longer play out so they are not dropping teirs and screwing people who are playing."

I get the frustration of seeing pages with only a few viable targets.  But in all honesty all you have to do is ignore these teams that are 'screwing people"  I set a timer for 15 minutes every time I refresh when I'm actively working arena.  It's a pain but it works.  I get enough viable targets to use my free 39 daily tokens.  

"find a better matching system than player power in Bronze and Silver, my 2nd account floats on low G1 and reset I call it Silver Hell as if I drop to Silver it takes a ton to get out because I am facing team harder than my main account in G4"

This one is frustrating even if you don't fall a tier.  I'm not in Bronze or Silver so not sure the differences, but at every reset at 2900 points the first day or two is much more difficult than when you work up to even 3400.  The reason is that at reset every single player is at the bottom of the barrel so to speak.  Now I'm fighting teams that were just in or near platinum as wll as players at low G4.  I think arena points are used in G and they should be used in B and S as well.  I agree PP is not any better a match up than team power.

"Maybe have a speed cap per teir for the lower teirs, I am sorry but there is nothing worse for me than to have a fight and I never get to go because the other team had 1 stat that was better than mine."

So, if there is a speed cap for say S1, and I never even play arena but go and farm dungeons and get gear that exceeds that cap, then I go to arena, I'm automatically placed in S2?  Or what? I'm not allowed to play arena?  Again while I appreciate your frustration your solutions are not always well concieved.  Why shouldn't someone that has a better stat than you beat you?  Not sure I follow.

Just food for thought.  Don't take it harshly please I'm trained to be skeptical and critical.