If you aren't aware yet, I made an arena guide here viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1680 please do check that out because what I'm about to post below showcases most of the things I've said on that guide, eg; knowing when enemy is playing capture or full attack, etc.
Here's a video of myself doing arena runs on the last day before the weekly reset, Note: I had to remove the sounds because it was stuttering, I replaced it with anime instrumentals instead.
So the most notable unit here is Samurai Shizu. Samurai is probably the most underrated advancement of Shizu, almost everyone would just gun for Ninja because of the tad bit better stats and aura proc rate, that some would even forget that they aren't whales to be wasting very limited resources like Shizu on a class which is just a tad bit better than a Ninja Kai. Some even says, "It's a late game investment", well goodluck on MLB'ing a Ninja Shizu, even some of the top spenders have yet to MLB their Ninja Shizu.
There are also some people who would say "Do not rely on her aura" or that other guy who would go so far as to rate Samurai as Shizu's lowest priority advancement and rate Ninja as #1. Do not listen to people who spends too much because they tend to tunnel vision alot, they try to bruteforce everything instead of thinking strategically. That guy who said Ninja is the best for Shizu even scrapped his Ninja Shizu on arena and went for another setup instead, he would also use a Gladiator Freya on the first row when he himself said that Gladiator Freya should be on the 2nd row, then his BK Darrion which he keeps overrating is now replaced by a Chaos Knight, this guy's hypocrisy is on the next level.
Samurai Shizu is amazing whether it's PVE or PVP. Her aura is very reliant on teamplay and her skill is a really strong AOE with just a low cooldown of 6-turns, not to mention it comes with a free debuff.
Next up is Winry. Winry Marksman actually has very good base stat at MLB. You can check it out right now by going to the codex and compare her stats to her Hunter variant or even to 5* +2 max train units. I started the game on official launch and since the first few gem you stack as a newbie should be used on building up a team from pulls, I managed to collect way too much Winrys and that is when I decided I should just make use of her instead. Winry has been with me for so long, her aura grants me almost 700 atk boost which really helps my Ninja Kai get more consistent kills and she comes with a 5-turn cooldown : 3-turn sleep. 3-turn sleep is extremely powerful on arena and with it's low cooldown, Winry actually is very viable still even at the 5k ratings.
There's also a part of the video where I fought against a full DPS team with triple command aura archers. Yes it is very strong yet it comes with a really obvious weakness. The archers' squishiness. My Ninja Kai sustained almost all the damage that came from the 3 archers thanks to Dodge Rune and absorb aura of Faye, it is a solid counter to trigger combos. It then only took a single chance for Shizu to deal massive damage to the enemy backline with a critical attack. With Shizu being able to survive for so long due to her high defense as a Samurai, I was able to burst down more of the enemy units with her skill as they were stacked together. You can easily imagine the results if my Ninja Kai is MLB'd or my other units doesn't die so quickly or if I had maxed out runes on all units.
Sorry for the wall of text. I have no TL:DR version for this. Please do take the time to read as this would help other players to think more broadly.
For those who are curious, here is my final rating before the weekly reset at 01/16,
I'm an official launch player and have a prestige level of 6.
Update: 01/21
Finally gotten Top 50 + 5000 Rating milestone, now I don't need to tryhard anymore ;3
And yes, this was still done with my puny team shown on the vid.
