Arenas "upgraded"?

I ve been playing 5*-6* normal and featured arenas for a long time, having a system/rotation for a long streak like everyone etc etc. Lately, After 5th or 6th streak, the defending team is a 6* rank 3 trio with god tier awakened champs. And that goes for 2-5 rounds at least, never saw that before, I can barely get through 2 of them. My question is, WTF?

Comments

2StarKing

I have not experienced a change when I use my 5* r1 to streak 11, all easy fights. The opponent PI might be sightly higher than mine. When I use max 5* for streak 5 and 6 the fights are challenging but winnable. Streak 7 -14 using max 5* matches me again Thanos teams.

Searmenis

I have not experienced a change when I use my 5* r1 to streak 11, all easy fights. The opponent PI might be sightly higher than mine. When I use max 5* for streak 5 and 6 the fights are challenging but winnable. Streak 7 -14 using max 5* matches me again Thanos teams.

I agree, streaks 5-6 are usually the worst but doable. 7-14 easy with 5* max, and after that walk in the park even for r1 6* or r3-5 5*.

Rahultripathi

I normally do 5 star rank 1 upto streak 10 and than from there I do 5 star rank 5 upto streak 15 and after than anything above 5 star rank 3 and 6 star is easy to keep infinite streak going. I don't see death match this way.

e_mac

Use 5* r2 and 4* r4 for streaks 0-10, start with the lowest going upwards. Do not reach r3s before streak 10. Actually do not use r3s untill after Thanos/Kang teams.
Streaks 0-10 : 5* r2/ 4* r4
Streaks 10-15: 5* r5 (u can do one r4, but there needs to be a r5) 6* r2 (same applies, u can use a r1 but do not make a team with r1s only)
Streaks 15-infinite: Do not go lower than 5* r3 and you should be fine.
Don't know where R3s fit in this since I don't have any.
Always works for me.

Giuliameij

I actually noticed the opposite. I was facing KANG/Thanos teams starting at streak 5.
However, This was with maxed 5* and rank 3 6* champs + suicide masteries which will push the PI beyond the teams your mention and thus giving me Kang teams.

Mathking13

Sadly, this is what happens when a new rank of champion becomes available. Some people got access to their first Rank 4 6-star not too long ago, meaning the baseline for avoiding deathmatches in arenas has gone up (but hey thankfully it's only for the arenas that let you use 6-stars... maybe that's why they haven't let them into the Catalyst Clash arenas?)
The other annoying thing is this is going to go up AGAIN when people get their second and third rank 4 6-stars (which is probably going to be quicker than how long it took people to get the resources for their first ones).
From experience (which tbh isn't as much as some other people out there, but still a bit), I was able to safely get to 15 streak by running teams with at least 30k Pl. I don't think you can run 5r3 champs anymore either unless you run them alongside at least an 5r4 and 5r5 (or 6-star equivalent ranks). So that sucks but honestly that's how it is.

Hopefully Kabam can figure out how to 'fix' arenas to stop this being an issue. But they've got a lot of stuff on their plate so I guess we'll just have to make do for now. It sucks but that's how it is.

unknown

This content has been removed.

Reference

Normally building a steak of 100 in basic and feature arena. Nothing change on me recently and I grind as usual.

Panchulon21

Working as intended

DNA3000

Sadly, this is what happens when a new rank of champion becomes available. Some people got access to their first Rank 4 6-star not too long ago, meaning the baseline for avoiding deathmatches in arenas has gone up (but hey thankfully it's only for the arenas that let you use 6-stars... maybe that's why they haven't let them into the Catalyst Clash arenas?)
The other annoying thing is this is going to go up AGAIN when people get their second and third rank 4 6-stars (which is probably going to be quicker than how long it took people to get the resources for their first ones).
From experience (which tbh isn't as much as some other people out there, but still a bit), I was able to safely get to 15 streak by running teams with at least 30k Pl. I don't think you can run 5r3 champs anymore either unless you run them alongside at least an 5r4 and 5r5 (or 6-star equivalent ranks). So that sucks but honestly that's how it is.

Hopefully Kabam can figure out how to 'fix' arenas to stop this being an issue. But they've got a lot of stuff on their plate so I guess we'll just have to make do for now. It sucks but that's how it is.

This will start happening as more R4s show up, but I don’t think they are responsible for the recent reports of shift in arena match behavior. I suspect it is more likely due to SoP. If it was due to R4, the people reporting the problem would be specifically reporting seeing the R4s.

It takes a bit of explaining to get here. Most people when they grind arena, at least once they are deep into their streak, start from their highest PI champs and work down towards their lowest. If you’re doing this, the point where you first pull a deathmatch should pull the highest raw PI opponent team possible, which should include an R4. That’s because the reason you’re *not* getting a death match is because the arena wants to pull a team of ~4x your own team, and it can’t because no such team is available. So it throws a default team at you which is about your own team’s strength. The lower you go, the lower the team the arena wants to throw at you, and eventually when you go low enough a team becomes available - the highest such team available.

In an earlier thread it was established that the match system doesn’t look at your actual PI, it looks at an intrinsic PI that does not include signature levels (basically, unawakened PI) and attempts to match you against an opponent team of similar unawakened PI, multiplied by a difficulty multiplier that maxes out just under 4.0. Moreover, it is not assembling those teams randomly, it actually uses teams that other players use. Our attack teams become other players’ match teams.

Every player is matched against a randomly selected subset of all players - not everyone. So just because R4s exist, doesn’t mean they exist *for you*. Your randomly selected arena opponents might not have an R4 yet. R4s don’t mean anything to you until your opponents gain them.

But another way for the highest possible match team to get higher is if your arena opponents rank up more champs. When people rank up champs, the teams they form for arena grinding change. Their highest intrinsic PI team (which does not include signature level) can go up because a high intrinsic PI champ was originally not ranked up (or not sigged up) and now that it is, it is used in arena teams combined with other high PI champs, making those arena teams higher in intrinsic PI. Which now means the lowest team you can use before triggering a deathmatch goes up.

Short version: each of us has a random set of players from which the game throws arena opponents at us. If the highest team in the set has intrinsic PI of X, the lowest team you can use without triggering a death match is about X/4. Above that the game can’t find appropriate matches and defaults to easy mode. Below that the game can find matches, and you end up with X*4 “death matches.” Anything those players do to increase X will increase the lowest “safe” team you can use. That includes ranking up champs - because that directly increases X. It also includes adding sig stones to champs, because while this does not directly increase X, it can shuffle the teams players use in the arena, which can indirectly increase X.

R4s will impact your streak when you see them. Until you do, it is probably not R4, and more likely some other thing going on that changes (and increases) the teams your match buddies are using in the arena.