About Arena defense strategy

I win pretty often, but I have a very different play style. It's like lightning kill before you are killed, or run away until you can do just that. I have offensive long range magic team that supports itself well though DEF and RES buffs. Lukas, Tharja, Reinhardt/Blucina, and Ninian. The mages are able to 1hitKO nearly all the time, and if not there is a dancer which is a staple, or Lukas to finish them off. Then Lukas has absurdly high def as well as Obstruct and Swap, so all my mages are free to hide behind him.

I think depending on your playstyle, healers can be important. But dancers are better, because they help you finish off units rather than take more damage from the enemy turn imo. I think you might do better with substituting Xander with Reinhardt, since you already have another red (Ike). Plus you would benefit from having a long range magic attacker that isn't a healer. Or you could substitute Ike with Reinhardt and run Horse Emblem with his Goad Cavalry.

Only the highest defense score matters... so if you get 540 but dont get anything higher then every other victory after that point is just for banter

I have a grand total of two wins on arena defense, and I've been playing this game since day 1. However, the teams I use for arena offense are also the ones I tend to use for arena defense, and this is arguably one of the worst things to do, especially since on defense your team is controlled by AI, and not yourself.

Since I essentially have no arena defense wins, what I'm saying is more from speculation and less from experience (though some of the teams in arena that manage to kill one of my units [without the help of map layout] always get my attention).

I still prefer a team that has heavy offensive presence as well as defensive abilities or utility that makes it risky to engage units even if you are certain you can easily take them down. Powerful blade mages (Tharja, Linde, Nino), nukes in general (brave weapon/tome users), and units that can counterattack regardless of distance (Ryoma, Ike, Camus, Xander) are good candidates to begin with. However, adding abilities like G Tomebreaker (Julia, Spring Camilla), Wings of Mercy (dancers but also works on powerful nukes to finish off clean kills), and Drag Back (especially useful on melee firesweep users since they can't be killed in any way when they initiate an attack) make teams much harder to fight. Of course, dancers are always useful, especially on maps with forts or just small maps that limit or restrict unit movement, as it can force the player to engage or risk being eventually run down; the AI might be a bit harder to predict as well.

Assists, specifically positional ones, are also worth mentioning because the AI can occasionally either create a loop that forces you to attack them first or set up a unit or two that can engage and then be positioned back to safety, essentially giving them free damage.

I was desperate to get defense wins this season and decided to change my team to Xander, Camus, Reinhardt (with wings of mercy, goad cavalry and rally def) and Hector/Legion (Brave axe+, panic ploy and wings of mercy). I had 0 defense wins yesterday and now I have 4. I suppose Reinhardt is staying back to rally Xander/Camus. With fortify cav they are able to survive, so Rein and Legion can kill some units with wings of mercy.

To be honest, I hate wings of mercy, but I had to do something to get defense points.

I also have a lot of issues getting wins in Arena defense. I was wondering if you guys could have some advice.

My main defensive team is composed of those heroes :

- Ryoma : Vantage build
- Nino : Fury / desperation
- Ephraim : Buffer + triadept / lancebreaker
- Azura : singer wings of mercy

I tought it could work as I have distant counter, high burst and good overall tankiness but I don't get so much wins usually...

I am currently trying an other team but I'm not sure it's gonna work well.

I kept the same thing but I replaced Nino with Tiki (y) with lightning breath quick riposte. I'm not sure it's gonna work well but I tought maybe playing the distant counter game could work as the offensive version with Nino isn't working so great.

Btw both ryoma and tiki have reposition.

Effie, zephiel, nino and gordin, all 5* and all full inheratence. Since I replaced eldigan with zephiel, I get at least 3 or 4 wins in the arena, but never got past 300 defense points.