Yup this is indeed a challenge. Post your roster - maybe we can help you find teams that get around the lack of arbiter.

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The team i use in offense and defense is High Khatun as speedlead (296 speed), then Umbral Enchantress (230) to provoke all oponents... once that is done Venus does AoE lowerdef and Ma'Shalled fears all... then we finish them off.  Works great when i get first turn... i have no problem winning 20 duels a day, but i loose even more in def.

Any chance you completed the fusion event for Yoshi a while back?

HK

Psylar

Umbral

Salad

By what you said, it sounds like your 296 HK is losing the speed race 80% of the time?  In other words, even HIK isn't getting a turn?  Or does HK have a turn, but then the rest of the team cuts in?  The reason why I am asking is because these are 2 different scenarios

If HK gets a turn but then no-one else does, then it means you are winning the speed race but the rest of your team is too slow.  A 15% turn meter boost from HK isn't enough to bring everyone above the enemy turn meter, and you will need to consider adding some speed to your Umbral Enchantress to get the Provoke out.

If no-one is getting a turn, then you really only have 2 options.  The first is to improve your speed by getting more speed set pieces from dragon and hoping for decent triple/quad roles.  The second is building a go-second team.  The latter could be accomplished by something like:

• Seeker in lead (defense champ, def aura lead + increase defense on everyone when hit), 
• Scyl (defense champ, General healing and resurrect, stun and team support).  She could be replaced by another champ that brings defense down but that champion needs to be able to take a hit
• Magnar (HP champ.  high HP and survivability, plus your nuke), 
• Vogoth (HP champ, healing the team after the enemy nuke hits, plus Provokes later turns.  Make sure he is last in your squad layout so that when he is hit he will heal the others who have already taken damage. )

You'd ideally want a shield set on one of them to bring additional survivability (though watch out for madam serris on enemy teams), plus build them with high HP and defense in general.  Your target for this team is enemy speed nuke builds and not enemy defensive teams.

That said, a 296 HK should be more than enough for Gold 1, though maybe not for Gold 3.  I am currently sitting in that same bracket and I have a 281 Arb (largely because I needed the best speed gear on my CB team) and I am comfortably winning 9 out of 10 speed races.

The only thing I can say about speed races is that you need to really pick your battles.  For example, a team with team power of 100K and Arb lead is likely very very fast, but a team with 130K and Arb lead will generally be slower (though still built as a "speed nuke team".  The lower the team power, the more that team has focused on speed, and the more likely you will lose the race without godly gear.  Look for speed teams with a higher power and you should win the race

Sadly, that go-second team is just cannon fodder. Without an RES lead, you have no chance of getting enough resist to actually survive :/

Plarium should just get the tiers out of the Missions list and replace it with medal requirements.  

e.g. "Get to Gold II" could be "Collect some large but attainable number of gold medals".  

The way the Missions are currently structured borders on insulting.  I've spent about $500 since Christmas in order to force an account I once considered "FTP" over the line into Gold II so I could finally get past a mission on which I'd been stuck since before Halloween.*  The next mission after it is, like, "beat the dragon ten times on level 14 or higher".

This gives the impression that Plarium intends Gold II and Level 14 bosses to be of approximately equal difficulty, which is just crazy.  Making "Reach Gold II" a prerequisite for "Beat a Wimpy Boss a Few Times" is like making a graduate seminar in Non-Euclidean Geometry a prerequisite for a basic addition and subtraction course aimed at six year-olds. 

*Not to say that I'm an RSL expert or anything, but it's shockingly difficult to whale one's way past the "reach tier X" missions.  That should not be!

We continue to pass such feedback along, and it is reiterated by a TON of people in EVERY arena thread, but let's focus on helping give our OP some potential teams/champs/strats to work on it.

To the OP, I like what Trips has suggested above with HK, Psylar, Umbral and Salad.

I also think this is great advice by RR, and something that would help us figure out helping advise your next steps, if you want more options:

By what you said, it sounds like your 296 HK is losing the speed race 80% of the time?  In other words, even HIK isn't getting a turn?  Or does HK have a turn, but then the rest of the team cuts in?  The reason why I am asking is because these are 2 different scenarios

If HK gets a turn but then no-one else does, then it means you are winning the speed race but the rest of your team is too slow.  A 15% turn meter boost from HK isn't enough to bring everyone above the enemy turn meter, and you will need to consider adding some speed to your Umbral Enchantress to get the Provoke out. 

Won't happen. The entire structure of this game - every part of it - is built on the foundation of influencing people to spend money on lottery tickets. Having a system that provides guaranteed returns without requiring any monetary investment goes completely against that model.

What *could* maybe happen would be to change the reward system of arena, to make it so the medals function similarly to how shards work - exchange gold medals for the chance to get something which, when *that* accumulated enough, would let you progress past the mission milestone. They could then monetize that by selling medals in the store.

Indeed. The tool on deadwoodjedi indicates you'd need 271 speed on Umbral to prevent cut-in. I don't know if that number is correct - it seems higher than I'd expect, but perhaps that's because of the low base speed of Umbral.

Thanks for your suggestions.  Like I said, when I choose the battle i win 80% of the time.  It's just the defense that lets me down, i loose as much or more points when i don't play.

Umbral not getting first after HK opens happens not very often (like 1 in 20).  Normally if Khatun can open the rest of the team is faster then the enemy, too. (230, 214, 204)

So perhaps i should consider making a whole different defteam... I also have the fragments for Drexthar, Yannica and Opardin.  But that would require me to lvl 60 some new champs, and that's a whole investment for a f2p.  So I wanne be really sure before I start that line.  Vogoth and Magnar are allready 60.  When i see Seeker on the enemy team i win like 95% of the time, so i'm not very inclined to use him.  Are Toragi or Tatura options ?

I  gave  Rose  Royal  an  upvote  because a  lot  of  what  he  said  is  right,  but  not  all.

I  don't have  time  to  write  the  errors,  but  I  will  post  later  on.

I don't quite agree with that.  There's lots of stuff in the game that can be farmed for "free", most of which can be farmed even more by players willing to open their wallets.  If I needed 5,000 gold medals to complete a mission, I'd probably end up buying gems and packs for that grind, which would otherwise take months.

Maybe I'm unusual in this, but I think this would cause me to spend more, not less, because  I'd probably STILL get psychologically manipulated into buying shards every time a "guaranteed champion" event pops up.  

Ok  -  I'm  back

What  I  wanted  to  say  is  you  should  make:

-  A  Go  1st  Speed  team  

&

-  A Go  2nd  Tank  team

Your  Best  Go  1st  Speed  team  in  my  opinion would  be:

HK  ->  Seeker  ->  Venus  ->  Ninja

Your  current Arena  Offense  set  up  is:

HK  ->  Umbral  ->  Venus  ->  Ma'Shalled

Now  let  me  say  the  set  up  your  using isn't bad,  BUT  it  is  better  on  Offense  vs.  Defense.

The  reason  why  is  because you  can  manual  on  Offense.

You  can  force  Ma'Shalled  to  attack  the  enemy  nuker  or  reviver.

The  problem  is  on  Arena  Defense  the  AI  computer  plays  for  the  heroes.

The heroes will  attack  based  on  Affinity  when  the  AI  is  in  control.

The  AI  attacking  based  on  Affinity  becomes a  big  issue  due  to  Ma'Shalled  is  Spirit.

Spirit  Affinity  Nukers  will  try  to  kill  Force,  Void,  &  Spirit  Affinity  before  Magic.

The  most  popular type  of  Revivers  &  Nukers  in  the  game  are  Magic.

This  means  your  Ma'Shalled  will  kill  the  Enemy team  key  heroes last.

This  could be  a  reason  why  your  losing  alot  of  Defense  fights.

Your  team  could  be  faster  vs.  enemy  teams you  face.

But  your  Ma'Shalled  might  not  kill  the  reviver  due  to  AI miscontrolling  the  fight.

As  a  result,  the  enemy  is  able  to  revive  the  team  on  the  brink  of  defeat  and  make  a  come  back  win.

1  way  to  change this  issue  is  by  switching  your team  to  the  team  I  suggested.

Build  a  Speed  Nuke  team  with  an  AOE  Damage  Dealer  vs.  Single  Target.

The  other  way  to  combat this  issue  is  by  making  a  Go  2nd  team.

If  you  do  decide to  make  Go  2nd  team,  Seeker  &  Vogoth  will  be  instant  add  on.

They  are  to  powerful  on  Defensive  Tank  team  not  to  be  used.

Their  passive  works  during the  enemy  team  which  is  critical when  your  team  hasn't moved.

As  for  the  other  2  heroes,  I  will  need  more  information from  you  to  help.

For  Example:

Altan  is  top  tier  defensive  Juggernaut.

Are  you  using  him  for  Arena?

Anyway,  My  lunch  break  is  over.

I'll  talk  more  later.

Ok  -  I'm  back

A  interesting Go  2nd  team  which  could  be  tried  is:

-  Seeker

-  Altan  

-  Umbral

-  Vogoth

I  guess it  depends  on  your  Altan  situation.

I  don't know  if  your  Altan  is  geared  for  Clan  Boss.

Rose  Royal  did  bring  up  good  option  with  Magmar.

Magmar  can  be  a  Nuker  for  a  Go  2nd  Team  as  well.

You  would  have  to  pick  between 1  or  the  other.

All  depends  on  you  really.

I agree with the advice here, but needing arbiter to get arbiter is a major flaw.

If they hadnt injected 'low level players that arent bots' into the game, i would have never got my arbiter.

Now we are back to the difficulty before the non-bots i dont think anyone without arbiter has a realistic chance of getting her.

Player J, thanks a lot for your suggestions.  I feel you are right concerning Ma'Shalleds affintiy weakness when not manually played, i have to cut my 'autoplay' quite a lot to prevent this from happening.

So I could - untill i have upped a decent go 2d team - replace him with ninja in the defteam.  I'll give that a try.

I'm using Altan for Clan Boss atm allthought i'm not sure if he is "build for that"... i just try to max my champs usefull stats,for Altan that means : Def 4102; Critrate 98, Critdam 114, Acc 264 and Speed 164.  As you noticed no unkillable team there lol.  But getting highest chest on nm (x2) and brutal (x2) every day.

My final question here is, for that mentioned go second team, i guess all my defchamps need to have high resistance (like 250+) ? 

This all boils down to the same thing. If you want to run a speed team, you need minimum 300 speed, and even that is probably not enough for G3. If you want to run a go-second team, you need very high resists. The team that J suggested might work, but because you're not running a resist lead, you need even higher resists. 250 won't cut it - we're talking minimum 350. And on top of that, your champs need to have good DEF/HP to actually survive attacks.

For my defteam, if that would become a go-second, i can choose a RES-lead... good idea