Just won the Arena Tournament around day 40

[calmnesss13]

Just won the Arena Tournament around day 40 in the campaign with an average 7-8 lvl team. The named two-handed mace reward was nice, but if you are doing an Ironman run, the risk is not worth it. I was on the verge of defeat, but at the end Lady Luck smiled at me, though I would not say I was particularly lucky or unlucky.

The team was all nimble with raider-grade gear, no bone plates, nothing special:

1. Bowman (70HP/78RA/55MA)
Perks: Student, Pathfinder, Relentless (was aiming for overwhelm archer build), Bow mastery, Footwork, Nimble
Gear: 60/90 (head/body) armor, warbow (dropped by mercenary during cargo delivery event fight), 2 quivers, arming sword
Note: Had really good initiative: ~140 before gear, which made him often act first. Bringing him was a mistake (at least for the fights that were offered); the thrower would have performed better. He didn't do much shooting except for the last fight and was often forced to melee, which, without quick hands, was cumbersome.

2. Stunner (90HP/80MA/21MD), Deathwith trait
Perks: Student, Colossus, Backstabber (for reliable stuns against dangerous enemies), Mace mastery, Recover, Nimble, Underdog
Gear: 105/130 armor (wolf attachment), morning star, round shield, bandages
Note: Recover was useful during the 2nd fight and priceless during the last fight. Backstabber ensured a lossless win during the final rounds—it might have gone ugly without it.

3. Sword Duelist (90HP/75MA/21MD), Huge trait
Perks: Student, Colossus, Pathfinder, Sword Mastery, Crippling Strikes (for Shamshir special), Nimble, Duelist
Gear: 105/110 armor, scimitar, dagger, spider poison
Note: Main damage dealer of the team. Spider poison was wasted on him. Should have taken the second sword in the backpack.

4. Lancer (70HP/78MA)
Perks: Student, Dodge, Quick Hands, Polearm Mastery, Overwhelm, Nimble
Gear: 130/90 armor, pike, 2 nets
Note: Damage dealer/utility with quick hands for nets. Had good initiative, but 0 melee/ranged defense without Dodge.

5. Nimble Tank (115HP/63MA/42MD with Shield/65Stam after gear), Iron Lungs
Perks: Student, Colossus, Shield Mastery, Taunt, Underdog, Nimble, Indomitable
Gear: 105/110 armor, boar spear, heater shield, bandages
Note: HP pool compensated for average defenses. Taunt proved to be invaluable. No Recover yet—iron lungs compensated for the lack of it a bit.

Overall, the team was rather tanky but not really strong damage-wise. Anyway, I believe it was best that I could field for the arena at the time (should have swapped archer for thrower, though).

The first fight was against around a dozen spiders, which was easy enough. Bowman shot a couple of times before he was overwhelmed by spiders and had to resort to melee. Lack of damage output (none of the mercs had Berserk yet) allowed spiders to do a lot of webbing, forcing mercs to spend action points and fatigue to get free, which crippled damage output even more. At the end, Tank suffered the most, losing almost all of its body armor, but the rest of the team was almost untouched.

The second fight was 1 Big and 1 Medium Ifrit. This fight was quite lengthy and wore the team out a lot:
- 2 mercs suffered injuries: Duelist (-25% defense) and Lancer (-30% fatigue). They also lost all of their body armor.
- Tank lost the rest of his body armor and a bit of HP, leaving him at ~90; Stunner was mostly intact.
- Duelist's sword was rather low on durability in the end.
- Funny enough, Bowman did 2nd best damage with his sword; Lancer performed terribly (the pike is not a good weapon against Ifrits).

I tried to lure Ifrits into throwing rocks into my Stunner or Tank by placing them forward, but it seems the devs tweaked their AI, and instead they rushed for my backline even though it was a bit farther away. This took me off guard, and I had to pull back even farther; that worked, and the first 2 rocks hit the shields. But the backline was too far to get to small Ifrits in time, and big Ifrit assembled once again, which is when my duelist got his injury. After that fight turned into a lengthy brawl where the team tanked medium Ifrit's rocks (most of them missed, thank god) while killing 1-2 small Ifrits each round. Ifrits from rocks overwhelmed Lancer, who took 1 medium rock and several small hits and was left at half of his hit points. Bowman also suffered but was showing some nice swordsmanship dispatching enemies left and right. I must say Taunt was only working when taunted Ifrit was standing next to my tank; otherwise, they kept throwing rocks at my backline.

The third fight was against the Hedge Knight (300/320 with Warbrand), 4 Brigand Raiders, and Swordmaster (20/115 with Arming sword). To be honest, I didn't think the team would have made it—they were quite beaten up already and weary after the first 2 rounds. But they did!

One raider charged and was immediately dispatched by Duelist. Another one tried to flank but was shot by Bowman. The third one ran into Tank and was cut down by the Duelist/Lancer effort. The fourth one with the spear also charged Tank and was held by him the whole fight since the team was focusing on more dangerous adversaries. Hedge Knight was opposed by Stunner, whose sole job was just stunning him once per turn and nothing more to conserve stamina. In the first 2 rounds, he was lucky enough to land his 58% hits (with confident morale). Swordmaster tried to flank to get to my Bowman but was taunted, turned, and ran into my tank, which already was holding one of the raiders and would not last long without his armor against the Swordmaster even with Indomitable. That is when he was caught by the first net, after which the whole team except Stunner tried to kill him. He broke free, missed my tank, and was immediately netted and taunted again (to prevent him from breaking free). Lancer missed terribly on each of his hits—at least he was providing an overwhelmed debuff. Bowman had a 50-60% chance to hit and was landing shots from time to time. Duelist broke his scimitar (Yep! Should have taken the 2nd sword into the tournament) after a couple of hits and was using his fists for one round in pure desperation before he remembered to pull his dagger. Eventually after 3 rounds, Swordmaster was down. Tank was at 55 HP, and with a cut artery injury, he might have gotten lucky with a couple of misses and Swordmaster failing to break free during the last round he was alive. At the time, Stunner was not doing great against Hedge Knight; he missed one of his stuns, was outsped by his adversary, which resulted in missing his helmet, and suffered a split nose injury and had 15 HP left (the Deathwith trait played a crucial role here to avoid morale checks on HP damage; thus, even with 15 HP left, he still had confident morale). If not for Recover, he would have been dead by the time Swordmaster was dead, but Recover allowed him to outspeed Hedge Knight and keep him stunned again while his team was killing the last raider. Once Hedge Knight was alone and surrounded, Backstabber ensured he would be stunned until he was dead. Which turned out to be not necessary since Swordmaster's death put him into wavering morale, and surrounding him together with one armor puncture from Duelist put him into fleeing.

VICTORY!!! Was it worth it? As a challenge—YES, but too much of a gamble for a true Ironman run, even for such a nice reward.

[Mr Majestic]

Congrats. Tournaments are rough... pretty impressive to attempt them on an ironman run. (unless you're one of those people that just alts out the game and quits.... I mean, what's the point, you filthy deviant cheat?)

[A5G_Reaper]

Congrats there, tournaments are always ridiculously tough. It's actually funny how you're less likely to win if you do it later because the scale of enemies got completely out of proportion.

[turtle225]

Good job, fun read.

And yeah I agree that tournaments are fun but would never actually do one in an ironman. Risk losing 5 of your best bros for a random famed item is not worth.

You can pretty safely do the first two rounds and then bail at least. The third round is where you can get screwed by champions or lindwurms.

[A5G_Reaper]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Good job, fun read.

And yeah I agree that tournaments are fun but would never actually do one in an ironman. Risk losing 5 of your best bros for a random famed item is not worth.

You can pretty safely do the first two rounds and then bail at least. The third round is where you can get screwed by champions or lindwurms.

Or when you brought 5 BF chads and run into a plethora of mercenaries with overwhelm

[Scathe]

congratulations, fun read