Valiant Force Forum

Ok, so I was talking with my friend today, and he complained about the AI and all...
During the chat, some things came up which I believe that might be helpful to share for Arena Fights.

1) When on Auto, The AI automatically targets the 'weakest' member on the opposing team. This may be useful... or not, due to them hidden behind tall walls. But sometimes, might be good for 1st 2 turns to be Auto, to gauge whether the backlines have weaknesses to exploit.

2) Arena fights are a matter of every unit doing an action, then going into hibernation until everyone has made an action. Aka, do note that during your first 5 turns, each unit can only have 1 action. Unless you have a good shadow that refreshes your turn, but that likely will be turn 4 onwards.
- To make use of this, time your stuns/sleeps. Stunning AI on turn 4 wastes 1 whole action, which might be useful later in the fight.
- If you know that someone is likely to be targeted ALL the time (Yes, Winry, I'm looking at you), try and make sure they get at least 1 attack out before they die. Cause once they die, you end up with 1 less turn than the AI.
- Knockbacks are good for wasting the turns of the melee classes. As long as they cannot attack, they will move, so its a wasted turn.
- Spell-Delays are useful but you might want to hold off them to right before you can link into or link from a chain stun. Its nice to see chain stuns keeping the AI from using spells or even attacking.
- Units that gain bonus action are always useful. For example, gunslingers, when they crit, bring everyone in their aura to join their attack... So that's a free action right there that you cannot control. Or even poison, like the Warlock classes, because its a nice passive, which when placed on the right unit, and good stun choices (Shoot the Medic!), kills. I've had situations where stunning the medic twice in a row gives me 3 kills, because Warlock poison = deadly when less than half HP.

3) Positioning is important. Stepping on tiles decreases defence and HP. So, unless you are confident you will not get attacked, or you can tank it out, you might want to just avoid standing there with no way to mitigate the damage. Stealth and healing helps. A LOT.

4) Tips from exi:
Arena AI targeting isn't random. If you use the same arena team for many games, you will see a pattern of skill and attack targeting. Use this to help you decide which units and spells to use to maximize its value. For example, I know the enemy champion will always target either my kiera or winry, but the enemy archer will always target my assassin Kai. Using this information, I always time Lucille heal spell to minimize the damage receive. 


Just some ideas to condsider in the arena. Do post if you have more tips! I'll try and compile them or something...

At last
A game guide on the game guide box

Here's my tip:

Arena AI targeting isn't random. If you use the same arena team for many games, you will see a pattern of skill and attack targeting. Use this to help you decide which units and spells to use to maximize its value. For example, I know the enemy champion will always target either my kiera or winry, but the enemy archer will always target my assassin Kai. Using this information, I always time Lucille heal spell to minimize the damage receive. 

Some tips for me and hopefully it helps! For general public, the best advantage in PvP is the enemies are AI.

1. Rushing for the tiles is not a bad option but it gives an initiative for the opponents to Attack you since you wasted 1 turn for Moving. 
Positioning Turn Counts VS Attacking Turn Counts
There are various jobs which lean towards a certain advantage say for example, you trade [Mobility] for [Attacking Power] so jobs like Shadows are very versatile in arena which most of them has low cool down and swap position or even aura that refreshes turn. One tactic i use is to position my Shadow at the far corner of a map and wait for his/her [Cooldown] to swap the Mid Tile Defender (most of the time which are hard to kill) and disrupt aura positioning. Take into consideration the allowance of tile points you're giving your opponents at the headstart so they don't overtake you too much. This tactic favors 2nd turn in arena because of the free -1 [Cooldown]. 

2. Selective focusing an enemy unit. 
Pinpointing Heroes
VF introduces Aura and players like to do is stack and stack auras after auras on a specific hero. For example, they like to stack a Crusader in front of a Healer so they can keep triggering aura when the Crusader get hit and fulfill the condition for certain aura like Lucille's Witch Doctor aura. So disrupting aura is crazily advantageous for your team especially against AI, they will NEVER reform back and even if a miracle that they do, they are just wasting turns. If you see a healer, just swap out the healer somewhere Isolated, so an Archibishop Luthor will just be healing himself forever. Swap out a Freya and nobody can enjoy the buff and if you isolate her to a corner, she will be wasting her turn moving towards an enemy unit. The most important message in this tip is to find that 1 AURA that is heavily shared by the enemies because that is the Aura that holds the team together most of the time. 

The above tips is for players who are playing PvP. 
Now for some tips for both online and offline (meaning some random guy is fighting against your team in arena) PvP.

But have you ever thought of how your defense setup can prevent PvP players from gaining points? By allowing PvP players to win your [Offline Defense Setup] - when they are fighting your ghost arena defenders, you're actually letting more players to rise above you. But this doesn't really make much difference I would say but it's fun to pose some challenges for your enemies. And if you're not interested, you can just ignore the bottom parts

Say for example.. Not letting enemies earn any arena points mean you have lesser opponent in the upper tier. Simple? Now the next few tips are for disrupting winning streaks.

1. Observe how enemies AI move is the best way to learn. 
Aura Stacking
The most obvious move in AI as mentioned above, the 1st thing they do is gather all the remaining center tiles. 
Take into account the conditions that there are things you can't foresee  but can be prepare for example, you can't control your AI when a real player is fighting against your team in arena so they wouldn't care less about getting hit. You also can't foresee which turn your AI will go first or second. For me, I prepare for the 2nd, always 2nd. How? I don't place a defender at my outermost tile. Because I don't feel like fighting for the tiles. 
By moving all your characters to the 2nd tiles and 3rd tiles, using range units, the AI normally just attack the enemies without moving. Losing tiles don't mean you will lose a fight. My defense is heroes like Rogue Rin who has knockback aura. Replacing defenders with Rogues, Mystic, Rangers and Healers give you more utilities so make use of it. An Assassin Kai, Rogue Rin and Gunslinger Kane together are viable defense option consisting of <Knockback + Extra Hits + Extra Turns>. So this tactic can help you win a match without moving or even taking center tiles.. The reason why it is good for AI defense. 
If you read my first tip, this tip will make people waste a lot of turns moving while taking damage. You can think of it as Kiting. But back to basic, see the 2nd tip I gave earlier? This is a tip afterall so it's up to a player which type of strategic or tactic they want to have.

2. Thinking of taking down the strongest enemy in the opponent team ASAP? Think twice.
Dummy Heroes (Punching Bag/Damage Absorber)
One of the most common way to win in VF taking down the strongest enemy in the opponent team. AI has a certain procedure in PvP like what exi has mentioned. Firstly, most of them try to take center tiles. There are circumstances when I encounter them attacking me instead of taking tiles when they move first which I observe. Secondly, the AI champion will always taunt or pull my Archer. From here you can tell certain classes will target specific classes for AI. Just so you know my Shadow class is Rin and I focus Def and Crit build on her. Being at the far end and the lowest HP (compensate for the Def I gave), she can waste a few of the AI or players' turns in mid game. In the perspective of a real player, when they are pinpointing like the 2nd point I've mentioned above, this is actually a counter against [Pinpointing] but can still be counter-countered.

I concluded my tips but if you're interested feel free to PM me or whatever for hidden tips (actually I don't really have a lot). But you can tell I'm a Shadow x Healer Class user.

I'd like to hear those secret tips of yours...