Options
Optimizing Arena (Ascension, Express, Recoil)
DNA3000
Member, Guardian Guardian › Posts: 21,033 Guardian
TL;DR:
- Ascension helps a lot in the trials arena
- Recoil masteries also help but with downsides
- Express mode is generally faster (for me) than trying to hit the biggest match in the trials arena.
- Total units available to moderate grinders in the game is about 96,000.
- It is possible to grind out all the milestones in the trials arena in about two hours, and all the milestones in all three arenas in less than four hours. Even without recoil masteries, its doable in about five hours.
This is a follow up to my article from last year: I'm Probably Ascending the Wrong Champs as an Arena Grinder. The basic thought was: instead of Ascending 5* champs with my tier 1 dust, I should be ascending 4* champs because that could directly improve my grinding speed in the Summoner's trials arena. In fact it was the only real way to improve my performance in that arena. Arena speed gets faster with stronger and higher PI champs, so the grind speed in the two higher arenas gets faster all the time as higher rank champs become available. But since the Trials arena is limited to 4* champs, we're basically capped. Once you have a decent amount of rank five 4* champs you can't go any higher. Except of course for Ascension. The question was: how much of an impact does it have. Is it actually worth the effort? I finally decided to find out.
In fact, there's three big variables to consider in the Trials arena specifically, besides the obvious of having max rank 4* champs. There is the question of Ascension, there's the question of using arena express, and there's the question of masteries: specifically using the recoil masteries. I decided to look at each of these options to see what impact they had on my grinding. There are eight different combinations of using and not using these options:
Ascension / Arena Express / No recoil
Ascension / Arena Express / Recoil
Ascension / No Express / No Recoil
Ascension / No Express / Recoil
No Ascension / Arena Express / No recoil
No Ascension / Arena Express / Recoil
No Ascension / No Arena Express / No recoil
No Ascension/ No Arena Express / Recoil
I basically tested them all. Specifically, I recorded and measured grind times and points earned when using Ascended vs not Ascended champs, when using arena express and with express off and picking the top match instead, and when using 1/3/3 recoil verses having recoil, liquid courage, and double edge zeroed out. I currently have 27 Ascended 4* champs, good for nine arena rounds. I could compare nine rounds with those champs against nine rounds with the 27 highest non-ascended champs. To ensure that this was as close as possible to an apples to apples comparison, the net overall average PI of the ascended champs before ascension was reasonably close to the average PI of the unascended champs: in this case the average PI of the unascended champs was 6302 and the pre-ascension PI of the ascended champs was 6401. So comparing the ascended champ's performance to the unascended champs performance would be reasonably close to a hypothetical comparison between the ascended champs and their own performance if they were not ascended.
I'll skip the details of factoring out ramp up and averaging across multiple runs across multiple trial arenas and jump straight to the tabulated results:
The first four rows are without recoil masteries, the bottom four rows are with recoil masteries. The data shows that the impact of using ascended champs is both beneficial and significant. It takes on average about 4.21 hours to complete all the milestones in the trials arena using non-ascended champs. It takes only 2.85 hours using ascended champs, which is a 48% improvement in speed. However, that speed doesn't come primarily from increasing the PI of the champs to increase the amount of points you get (which is what I was originally thinking when I thought about doing this): using ascended champs increased the average amount of points per round by about 14%, but it also decreased the time per round by over 23%, which was an even bigger factor.
4* Ascension boosts both health and attack by 30% (ascension affects different rarities differently). It also increases PI by about 30%. But increasing the PI of your attackers by 30% only increases the points per fight by something closer to 15% because attacker PI is usually only half the total score: the defender PI also contributes, and increasing your own PI through ascension doesn't increase defender PI by a similar amount. But 30% higher attack directly speeds up fights by just straight up dealing more damage. The combination of the two ultimately has a huge impact on grind speed.
I will also note as an aside that if there are match ups that give you problems in the arena, having 30% more attack *and* 30% more health does wonders for turning tricky match ups into cake walks.
Similarly, using the recoil masteries also improves grind speed, also by on the order of 25% or so, and for similar reasons: it improves points per round a bit, and speed of the fights even more. The one thing that did not seem to improve my speed was switching from arena express to non-express and choosing the top match for the most points per round. This did improve my points per round, but reduced my speed per round by an amount higher than the points benefit, erasing that benefit except for the fastest combination of options: Ascended and Recoil masteries. With and without arena express generated about the same total speed: 2.17 vs 2.22 hours which is essentially a tie, with arena express taking 95 rounds and top match taking 91 rounds.
In past testing, I've noticed there's some variations in which settings generate the fastest grind times between different players. Some report turning express off and going with the top match improves overall speed, others don't. This may be affected by playstyle - how aggressive they play in the arena, say. All I can say is for me, arena express is basically as fast or faster, and definitely much safer. There's a lot more margin for error grinding through easier fights faster than harder fights for more points per fight. The clear winner for me is using ascended champs and arena express. Recoil masteries also help, but I don't like running them all the time and there's a cost to switching them off and on, so that's not a free choice for arena grinding. The bottom line is: Ascension helps, and it helps a lot.
Just for fun, I put together a table showing how fast my arena grind would be on average if I decided to use recoil masteries all the time verses now where I don't, not just in the Trials arena but also in the featured and basic arenas, aiming to reach the top milestone in each arena:
This table compares doing the arena like I currently do, but assuming I always stop in the trials after exhausting my ascended champs (when actually griding, I will often go farther than that and use unascended champs when I have the time) to get the best performance, compared to what my performance would be if I used recoil masteries all the time. The total time to complete all the milestones in all three arenas is 5.15 hours normally, and 3.93 hours if I ran recoil masteries all the time. The fastest arena by far is the basic arena and the slowest is the Trials arena, although at the moment using nothing but ascended champs it is pretty close in speed to the featured arena.
And just for giggles, I project those numbers into annualized figures assuming I did this consistently for a calendar year. Without recoil masteries I would spend 535 hours in the arena (about ten hours a week) and generate 83657 units. With recoil masteries I would spend only 408 hours in the arena (about eight hours per week) and generate 79375 units. The recoil number is smaller because you end up doing fewer rounds, and this figure includes the statistical average units from battlechips. Doing fewer rounds means getting slightly fewer battlechips overall. As an addendum to my https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/385738/how-to-get-units-in-mcoc-in-2025-its-like-2024-but-with-fewer-typos article, I mentioned the total units possible from "moderate grinding" (which included getting all the arena milestones) did not include units from battlechips. Based on this analysis, depending on how you grind arena you'd expect to get about another 25k units from battlechips from that activity, which increases the total annual units available to about 96,000 units total, plus or minus.
The bottom line:
- Ascension helps a lot. I would recommend ascending 4* champs for anyone grinding the Trials arena a lot
- Recoil masteries also help a lot, but whether you choose to use them depends on your circumstances. I don't like running them all the time.
- Arena express is faster for me, and safer, than the alternative (not using it and picking the top match to compensate). YMMV.
- The arena keeps getting faster, and even the Trials arena has an avenue to improve performance using ascension, assuming you can get the T1 dust.
... ironically, after all this testing I might need to take a break from the arena now.
- Ascension helps a lot in the trials arena
- Recoil masteries also help but with downsides
- Express mode is generally faster (for me) than trying to hit the biggest match in the trials arena.
- Total units available to moderate grinders in the game is about 96,000.
- It is possible to grind out all the milestones in the trials arena in about two hours, and all the milestones in all three arenas in less than four hours. Even without recoil masteries, its doable in about five hours.
This is a follow up to my article from last year: I'm Probably Ascending the Wrong Champs as an Arena Grinder. The basic thought was: instead of Ascending 5* champs with my tier 1 dust, I should be ascending 4* champs because that could directly improve my grinding speed in the Summoner's trials arena. In fact it was the only real way to improve my performance in that arena. Arena speed gets faster with stronger and higher PI champs, so the grind speed in the two higher arenas gets faster all the time as higher rank champs become available. But since the Trials arena is limited to 4* champs, we're basically capped. Once you have a decent amount of rank five 4* champs you can't go any higher. Except of course for Ascension. The question was: how much of an impact does it have. Is it actually worth the effort? I finally decided to find out.
In fact, there's three big variables to consider in the Trials arena specifically, besides the obvious of having max rank 4* champs. There is the question of Ascension, there's the question of using arena express, and there's the question of masteries: specifically using the recoil masteries. I decided to look at each of these options to see what impact they had on my grinding. There are eight different combinations of using and not using these options:
Ascension / Arena Express / No recoil
Ascension / Arena Express / Recoil
Ascension / No Express / No Recoil
Ascension / No Express / Recoil
No Ascension / Arena Express / No recoil
No Ascension / Arena Express / Recoil
No Ascension / No Arena Express / No recoil
No Ascension/ No Arena Express / Recoil
I basically tested them all. Specifically, I recorded and measured grind times and points earned when using Ascended vs not Ascended champs, when using arena express and with express off and picking the top match instead, and when using 1/3/3 recoil verses having recoil, liquid courage, and double edge zeroed out. I currently have 27 Ascended 4* champs, good for nine arena rounds. I could compare nine rounds with those champs against nine rounds with the 27 highest non-ascended champs. To ensure that this was as close as possible to an apples to apples comparison, the net overall average PI of the ascended champs before ascension was reasonably close to the average PI of the unascended champs: in this case the average PI of the unascended champs was 6302 and the pre-ascension PI of the ascended champs was 6401. So comparing the ascended champ's performance to the unascended champs performance would be reasonably close to a hypothetical comparison between the ascended champs and their own performance if they were not ascended.
I'll skip the details of factoring out ramp up and averaging across multiple runs across multiple trial arenas and jump straight to the tabulated results:
The first four rows are without recoil masteries, the bottom four rows are with recoil masteries. The data shows that the impact of using ascended champs is both beneficial and significant. It takes on average about 4.21 hours to complete all the milestones in the trials arena using non-ascended champs. It takes only 2.85 hours using ascended champs, which is a 48% improvement in speed. However, that speed doesn't come primarily from increasing the PI of the champs to increase the amount of points you get (which is what I was originally thinking when I thought about doing this): using ascended champs increased the average amount of points per round by about 14%, but it also decreased the time per round by over 23%, which was an even bigger factor.
4* Ascension boosts both health and attack by 30% (ascension affects different rarities differently). It also increases PI by about 30%. But increasing the PI of your attackers by 30% only increases the points per fight by something closer to 15% because attacker PI is usually only half the total score: the defender PI also contributes, and increasing your own PI through ascension doesn't increase defender PI by a similar amount. But 30% higher attack directly speeds up fights by just straight up dealing more damage. The combination of the two ultimately has a huge impact on grind speed.
I will also note as an aside that if there are match ups that give you problems in the arena, having 30% more attack *and* 30% more health does wonders for turning tricky match ups into cake walks.
Similarly, using the recoil masteries also improves grind speed, also by on the order of 25% or so, and for similar reasons: it improves points per round a bit, and speed of the fights even more. The one thing that did not seem to improve my speed was switching from arena express to non-express and choosing the top match for the most points per round. This did improve my points per round, but reduced my speed per round by an amount higher than the points benefit, erasing that benefit except for the fastest combination of options: Ascended and Recoil masteries. With and without arena express generated about the same total speed: 2.17 vs 2.22 hours which is essentially a tie, with arena express taking 95 rounds and top match taking 91 rounds.
In past testing, I've noticed there's some variations in which settings generate the fastest grind times between different players. Some report turning express off and going with the top match improves overall speed, others don't. This may be affected by playstyle - how aggressive they play in the arena, say. All I can say is for me, arena express is basically as fast or faster, and definitely much safer. There's a lot more margin for error grinding through easier fights faster than harder fights for more points per fight. The clear winner for me is using ascended champs and arena express. Recoil masteries also help, but I don't like running them all the time and there's a cost to switching them off and on, so that's not a free choice for arena grinding. The bottom line is: Ascension helps, and it helps a lot.
Just for fun, I put together a table showing how fast my arena grind would be on average if I decided to use recoil masteries all the time verses now where I don't, not just in the Trials arena but also in the featured and basic arenas, aiming to reach the top milestone in each arena:
This table compares doing the arena like I currently do, but assuming I always stop in the trials after exhausting my ascended champs (when actually griding, I will often go farther than that and use unascended champs when I have the time) to get the best performance, compared to what my performance would be if I used recoil masteries all the time. The total time to complete all the milestones in all three arenas is 5.15 hours normally, and 3.93 hours if I ran recoil masteries all the time. The fastest arena by far is the basic arena and the slowest is the Trials arena, although at the moment using nothing but ascended champs it is pretty close in speed to the featured arena.
And just for giggles, I project those numbers into annualized figures assuming I did this consistently for a calendar year. Without recoil masteries I would spend 535 hours in the arena (about ten hours a week) and generate 83657 units. With recoil masteries I would spend only 408 hours in the arena (about eight hours per week) and generate 79375 units. The recoil number is smaller because you end up doing fewer rounds, and this figure includes the statistical average units from battlechips. Doing fewer rounds means getting slightly fewer battlechips overall. As an addendum to my https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/385738/how-to-get-units-in-mcoc-in-2025-its-like-2024-but-with-fewer-typos article, I mentioned the total units possible from "moderate grinding" (which included getting all the arena milestones) did not include units from battlechips. Based on this analysis, depending on how you grind arena you'd expect to get about another 25k units from battlechips from that activity, which increases the total annual units available to about 96,000 units total, plus or minus.
The bottom line:
- Ascension helps a lot. I would recommend ascending 4* champs for anyone grinding the Trials arena a lot
- Recoil masteries also help a lot, but whether you choose to use them depends on your circumstances. I don't like running them all the time.
- Arena express is faster for me, and safer, than the alternative (not using it and picking the top match to compensate). YMMV.
- The arena keeps getting faster, and even the Trials arena has an avenue to improve performance using ascension, assuming you can get the T1 dust.
... ironically, after all this testing I might need to take a break from the arena now.
19
Comments
It's an impressive bit of work.
Still, this phrase in the opening caught my eye:
Even without recoil masteries, its doable in about five hours.
That'll be why I'm not doing it, then! 😂
For those of us with families and full-time jobs, ten hours a week is a lot!
I wonder what Kabam sees from their own data?
A% of players don't play arena at all
B% of players play for 0-2 hours per week
Etc, etc.
We'll probably never know... And asking on the forums (a ridiculously non-representative array of self-selecting players) isn't going to tell us.
---
Also, can you go back and do the whole thing again with an Android?
I'm willing to bet that iPhone > Ascension...
god dammit i wasted 34 ascensions on 5*s
I get the featured done in two rounds on day one, the basic in one run on day two. Have no interest in day 3 haha.
You guys play way more.
You were able to do this how?
By being given a chance regular players don’t have?
But it’s still not seen as an advantage?
There was a time long ago where I put up 160 rounds in a 4* arena for a 4* champ that wasnt even good and I guarantee that was not a big grind back then.
100 or so rds for t4b.
Maxing the milestones is pretty easy now, if you have enough champs. Nothing unfair about it because it's 10 years of work that got me here and account acceleration is much faster now than it was for veterans.
And as for the Ascension of the 4* champions, it’s deffo a game changer there. I use my sigil currency to buy the dust to ascend them, I figured that I bought the sigil to mostly help out with arena anyway so why not spend it on that?
Nice infos though
Whether two hours a week is fast enough is for people to decide for themselves. But there are people right now thinking that those milestones take five, six, or even more hours every cycle because they don’t know there are things they can do that in the long run will make it take fractions of the time.
I’m the purveyor of what’s possible. Everyone else has to decide whether what’s possible is actually desirable. Only a relatively small percentage of players actually grind arena; that’s something we can extrapolate from the leaderboard data. But the breakdown of hours spent? That’s tricky, and I’ve never been given that data. Ha ha ha ha ha no.
But there’s something else I noticed during testing. I didn’t actually run into a lot of Serpents, Arcades, Bullseyes, and Zolas. In fact, while I’ve seen Serpent in the trials, I didn’t see him once during my entire testing period. And there’s probably a very good reason why. All my tests were using 4* R5 sig 200 champs, either ascended or not. So the arena was matching me against the highest PI teams it could find. Which means for me to run into a Serpent, someone would have to have 4* Serpent, then choose to rank him up to R5, then use him in the arena. Which probably doesn’t happen often. The 4* trials arena - when you use maxed champs - is dominated by older champs because older champs have had a lot more opportunity to be ranked up. Newer champs have had less time to be ranked up in player rosters, and most players don’t prioritize ranking 4* champs anymore. And when people do rank 4* champs for arena, they of course rank for offense not defense: they rank champs that kill quickly. Serpent does not kill quickly, which makes him a liability in the arena compared to, say, Hit Monkey.
Maybe once I’ve recovered a bit and caught up with July content, I’ll go back to the recordings and count up the defenders I saw. One thing I did not think about a lot was whether using maxed 4* champs in general actually makes Trials easier as a weird side effect of avoiding newer defenders.
Even though there is no reason to rank up new 4-stars as they serve no purpose in content, i think people are ranking up these high prestige defenders to earn more points for their grind.
We’re down to just 15-20 minutes a day, six days a week, for 380-ish units per week, about 19,000 units per year. This is actually a ludicrous unit earning speed. Granted, you can only get 185-195 units per cycle this way, but that’s still something almost anyone has the time to do at some frequency, if they can build up the roster to reach that speed. And that is not the maximum speed possible, because there is no maximum possible speed since new rank up tiers get released over time. I have just a few R4s, but if my roster was all R4 (which one day all of our rosters will be) my time would be substantially faster. I suppose I’m going to have to test that now; spreading out the effort so I’m only using my top champs as they recharge across three days.
Not sure if already advised but should we then rank up attacking champions who can finish fights faster (Hit Monkey) or high PI champs (Silver Surfer)? I am leaning on the latter as it gives more points per fight so maximizing efforts
Also, there’s about a 34% difference between the best and worst prestige among the max 4* champs. However, there’s a much wider difference in kill speed between the fastest and slowest killers at arena-sized health pools. The fastest killers might be killing twice as fast as the slowest. The best thing, of course, is to focus on high prestige high speed killers, and work your way down. Champs like Black Widow DO, Kitty, and Rocket for example, are both fast killers and in the top half of prestige. Hit Monkey is also good here: he’s very fast, and only 4% lower in prestige than the top.
I tend to do pretty much that - three rounds in the trial arena first, since it's a fairly effortless 28 units; then bits of spare time is spent in the basic arena. I'll usually do half to two thirds of the milestones; but your work suggests to me that even just a little more time would be worthwhile.
😃👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼