Infinity Arena 300 (v1.3.0.18)

Former 200 runner back at it again in a new patch with a team for 300!

Introduction

312 achieved

287 in under 30 minutes

Previously, I put together a team in patch 1.0.1.19 which I used to reach 200, and wrote this writeup for it.

I'm back in patch 1.3.0.18, and having noticed some significant power creep in arena, decided to push the boundary again. We utilize a familiar setup of Thornish, Arachlich, and Nightwing, but this time, they're the B team. Our front-line party consists of Fungi x2 and a Troll.

In this case, our goal is to OHKO an enemy in the first round of every battle, then hope to survive the remaining two monsters. From there, we decide to keep the aggression on or switch out to some or all members of the backup party, to stall out as the opponents die to heavy damage-over-time (DoT) effects.

The last guide I wrote indicated that the team was not for speedfarming. I can happily say that with the new additions to the team, we can speedfarm effectively while also pushing extremes in length of an arena run. In my experience, it took roughly 7 to 10 minutes to reach level 200 with this team, as demonstrated in video with a timer included above. Reaching the mid to high 200s took 20-30 minutes when focusing on the game.

Before we jump into the main content of this writeup, I would recommend checking out the previous writeup, as I will not be reiterating the roles of our back-line team in such extreme detail. This guide intends to focus more on how to pilot your Fungi and Troll in terms of targeting and risk management, things which were largely irrelevant to the prior team.

Lastly, for the 312 run, I loaded up an old variation of the team with the trees listed below and happened to luck into the winning run with it. That said, I felt I was getting more consistency to and through the 200s using some alternative loadouts. I'll list both and describe them here. Feel free to use either or further tweak them on your own; I think the RNG at 250+ matters more than little nuances like these, but I wanted to include my thoughts on these alternative loadouts for anyone wanting to squeeze a little extra performance or do some testing of their own.

Disclaimer

My 312 run was achieved at Master Keeper rank. I say this, because as of 3/29/22 (one week after initially releasing this guide), I've just learned the monsters that appear in the Arena pool can be manipulated by which Champions you've slain.

Each Champion defeated adds monsters from that Champion's region to the pool. I don't have the specifics cataloged, nor do I intend to as this is a level of tedium I'm not willing to optimize for even if I had that information. What this means is Arena runs can be farmed with much higher ceilings and consistency by starting a new file or NG+ cycle to craft the arena-pool of enemies for the team you envision. This means slaying Champions which add the fewest problem monsters for your team while maximizing the number of monsters which are "safe" to bloat your pool of possible enemies.

Though this is the most efficient way to build for Arena, I believe the setup is excessive for the nature of this game, wherein experimentation is typically encouraged and accessible. On top of that, eliminating threats from the pool also eliminates a lot of the strategy required in high-level battles of Arena which does not sound fun to me. Furthermore, the use of glitches to skip certain Champions would be advantageous as well, which I'm not thrilled with. I am openly opposed to this system, did not and do not intend to use it, but as it stands, that is what we have in place, so I wanted to educate the Arena audience accordingly. I'll keep doing my runs at Keeper Master, personally.

Fungi

Our Fungi (henceforth referred to as Salt and Peppa) are built exactly the same, except Peppa has Spore Nebula instead of 1000 Leaves. The Fungi x2 + Troll combo is certainly nothing new or unique, but you need to understand their roles and what options they have in order to fully utilize them.

Before I jump into specifics, here's a brief rundown of how Fungi Fungi Troll functions: Fungi aim to land as many hits as they possibly can through Curse Chain and Proliferate. This generates massive combo and swells their Dominance aura to grant ludicrous damage output in general. Each Fungi has TWO Dominance nodes, and Troll has one of his own for a total of 5, AND Death Blow to boot. In short, Dominance go brrrrrrr.

Salt is our lead in most cases, aiming to apply Beating to the target affected by Troll's Initial Armor Break, because Troll's Broken Immunity aura will help maximize the number of debuffs applied to armor broken targets. Peppa usually follows that with a Spore Nebula to spread debuffs around the enemy team, lessening their damage output (both through the Weakness debuff and, in Troll/Thornish's case, Disease Control).

While that is the bread and butter opening for this team, consider these alternatives depending on your situation:

Salt Beating + Peppa Beating: This runs the risk of applying too few debuffs to the other monsters, leaving Troll open to threat. However, it can be useful if you need to focus-fire debuffs onto a particular target that *needs* to die, or if you are planning to have Troll use Boulder Toss to kill something (particularly useful with Aazerach and Kanko if you can afford to leave the other monsters relatively untouched).

Peppa Beating + Salt 1000 Leaves: Another option against dodge-heavy compositions. 1000 Leaves deals 2 hits to all the enemies for a total of 6 base hits, while Spore Nebula deals 3 hits to all for a total of 9. 1000 Leaves is a riskier option in some regards due to the lower average combo it outputs, but if there is enough dodge on the field, sometimes it's worth rolling the dice on this rather than the standard option which could yield even lower combo.

Peppa Spore Nebula + Salt Beating: The reverse of the standard opener. I use this sometimes when the Armor Break is placed on a target that I'm not confident will die in the first round (such as a Concealed Mimic) or when I want to gamble on putting the Armor Break on a higher priority target before Beating it.

Lastly, regarding Fungi replacements... I tried running Troll + Fungi + X where X is a non-Fungi monster, but the double Dominance that Fungi (and only Fungi) provides proved to be mandatory. Shockhopper and Diavola performed similarly well until the low to mid 200s where the team lacked the damage to consistently kill as needed.

Note that we do double up on the Unique Auras, because sometimes only 1 Fungi remains in play, and there's not much rhyme or reason as to which one it is other than which one happens to be alive when switching to the backline.




Additionally, here's the alternative loadout I liked for my Fungi. It trades Attack Plus and 2x Magic Plus to get Poisoned Nerves (for Arachlich's Congeal) and Defense Plus but is otherwise the same. I've also tried a variation where Peppa was fed Cookie Mushrooms instead of Bananas and got similar results, though overall I preferred the Bananas.

Troll

Troll exists here to exploit all the debuffs caused by our Fungi. He's fully kitted for turn-1 damage, though it is often worth leaving him in longer than that. Even so, the goal is ultimately to kill at least one monster on the enemy team in the first round every battle. Not only does this mean one fewer threat to potentially wipe your run, but Troll has Devour and Healing Shield which have a tendency to fully heal and substantially shield him on any kill.

It is therefore important that, when possible, you ensure Troll lands his kills via direct damage, as opposed to letting DoTs (Damage Over Time: poison / burn / congeal / bleed) land the final blow. Thanks to the healing/shielding gained from Poison Eater, you can use it as an exception to this rule, however.

Ideally, we kill with Flurry of Blows or Earthquake to get some damage and additional debuffs (armor break) on the remaining monsters. Single target kills are typically fine as well; Poison Eater is the favorable option in general, but we also grab Corrosive Strikes for some extra type coverage.

Regarding Ultimates, Boulder Toss is key. We get massive single target damage, ignore 50% of the target's damage reduction, and most importantly, the attack can't be dodged (though it can still miss if you're Blinded). This takes out key threats like Kanko, Aazerach, and even the nefarious dodgy Worm, despite it resisting Earth. Just be sure your Fungi don't use their Ultimates in the same round if you're planning to Boulder Toss something.

Another noteworthy mention on our Troll here; we have *barely* just enough mana/regen to cast a maximum level ability/ultimate followed by a lower level version the next round (or vice versa). So, when you're picking your move for the turn 1 kill, check to see if you can still get the kill safely with a lower level version of the move to save your mana. That way, if you keep Troll in for round 2, he still has the option to Boulder Toss or use a max level Poison Eater, Corrosive Strike, etc. This mana management can be the difference between you getting a kill in the second round or possibly losing the entire run due to a failure to kill.

I have no alternative suggestions for Troll other than considering Beating over Flurry of Blows, as the AoE is not required for pushing far in Arena; it just speeds things up considerably so the runs aren't such slogs. Alternative items might include Totem or Dumbbell over Bracer, but the shielding from Totem goes to waste when Troll full-shields himself after Devouring something, and Dumbbell has low consistency with granting 2 Might stacks (our only source of buffs is 2 random buffs per kill via Bounty).

Backline Changes

For the most part, the backline members function just as written here with a few small changes:

Thornish no longer needs Curse Chain since our front line applies the bulk of the debuffs. As such, he's swapped to Light Shift for more base stats and Curse Resistance for even better tanking. Additionally, we've dropped Spark in favor of Crown. I dropped a level of Tackle as well as Poisoned Nerves in favor of 2 levels of Poison Eater for combo building (important now, when Troll stays in to keep attacking).




Alternative Thornish trades the Large Shield for Trident and the Slime Skin for Vital Ring (since most of the Weakness is already applied before Thornish comes out). Additionally, the tree drops 2 mana nodes and 1 Poison Eater level to get both Health Procs (for combo building) as well as picking Poisoned Nerves back up to help Arachlich's Congeal.




Nightwing remained largely the same. No change in shift or equipment, though we drop Lifesteal, Mana Upkeep, and the last level of Cyclone in favor of passive Crit Chance nodes for more dodge.




Alternative Nightwing drops Katana in favor of Trident. Additionally, Drum and Buckler are dropped for Fin and Coat, though I would probably still advise Drum over the Fin. Overall, we gain about 2000 Health, higher % dodge and lose 4% Damage Reduction as well as Drum's extra healing.




Arachlich dropped Wand in favor of Large Shield and Coat in favor of Hide. Additionally, we dropped Bleed and Critical Freeze in favor of a little extra bulk through Transfusion and the extra Saboteur's Shield since we don't actually need Arachlich applying debuffs/bleed as much as before with the front line doing the bulk of the debuffing/damage now.




Alternative Arachlich drops Cauldron to pick up Drum. That said, I'd probably still give the Drum to Nightwing and either run a second Drum on Arachlich or keep the Cauldron. Tough to say how effective Cauldron really is; I didn't notice any DPS output difference but do feel like Cauldron was putting in a lot of work defensively, with regards to Weakness stacks on the enemy. Additionally, I dropped Armor Bypass, Mana Overload x2, and the last level of Revive since Arachlich does very little direct damage in this comp, and most of the healing comes from the Devour / Healing Shield combo making the amount of HP returned by Revive largely irrelevant. In return, we regain access to Bleed, Critical Freeze, and two mana nodes to aid Transfusion as a tiny extra layer of defense against DoTs killing Arachlich at the start of a new round.

Major Threats

Unfortunately there's no magic formula I can give you for how to prioritize the enemies in each battle. That'll depend on several variables, including the combination of monsters on the field, what level range you're at in the arena, and where your debuffs landed from initial passives and/or your opening action(s) in the first round.

What I can do is outline what the major threats are, and why they're threatening. Note that Spectral Familiars do not appear in Arena and thus aren't listed below.

Fire AoEs
These monsters have one or more of the many Fire AoE moves available in the game. Given Troll and Fungi are both weak to Fire, these are particularly dangerous at level 150+.



Ram Charge
Ram Charge has a tendency to hit *extremely* hard in arena due to the high base damage in tandem with the ability to ignore 25% of the targets' Damage Reduction. These monsters can threaten your Troll (and of course the Fungi) starting around level 200. Brutus especially so, and at any level.


Elemental Strikes
Similar to Ram Charge, this ability will ignore 25% of your monsters' Damage Reduction, and it'll pack a bit of extra punch on the Fire hit to boot. These monsters threaten at around 150+ as a result.


Cataclysm
Very similar to Elemental Strikes, but without the damage reduction bypass. This makes it slightly less threatening, though the Fire component can still easily threaten Troll (and Fungi) at 200+.


Tornado
This move is undodgeable and not Earth type (resisted by our front line) so it gets an honorable mention. Troll can sometimes dodge threats with Agility/Spellshield buffs gained from Bounty, and our backline heavily utilizes dodge mechanics to stay alive. With the primary tank (Thornish) being weak to Wind moves, this one in particular is a huge threat to keep in mind at 200+.


Initial Dodge
These monsters start on the battlefield with 8% or higher dodge in the first round, either due to Concealed*, Dodging, Evasion, or Spirit World. This is particularly dangerous, because it makes it difficult for your Fungi to land hits and thus continue their proliferation chains for high combo.

*Do note that some monsters have access to Concealed, but arena AI for them doesn't utilize it. Examples include Caraglow, Monk, and Vaero, but that list is not fully comprehensive.


Preparation
Admittedly I don't know all the monsters that definitively use Preparation in Arena; this is something I should have kept better notes on. I know for a fact that Blob uses it but am unsure of the others, so I listed all the possibilities for it. In short, just keep an eye on these as they might add Agility/Spellshield to the field before the battle even begins, which causes the same problem as the Dodge monsters above.


Specter
This monster gets its own callout for being a hard-counter to this team. If you see Specter at any level, there's a good chance you can kiss your run goodbye. Specter is very difficult to land a round 1 kill on for this team, because it resists both physical damage and debuffs, and it threatens the whole team heavily with Flamestrike as well as Gravity. This thing is a menace, and I never did find a good answer to it. When I see it on the field, my strategy is just to kill the next biggest threat in line, pray the Specter doesn't revenge-wipe me, then switch out to the backline team as quickly as possible.


Other
These guys all bring unique threats to the table. Mogwai, Draconoir, and Spinner generally deal extremely high damage; enough to threaten Troll (and Fungi) with their neutral-effectiveness AoEs at 150+. Caraglow and Thanatos in particular have a tendency of putting extremely lethal buffs on their allies and themselves, so even if you kill said ally, the remaining Caraglow/Thanatos can still threaten your team. Caraglow gets the added bonus of also cleansing your debuffs efficiently in the process. Lastly, Changeling can Imitate the moves of other monsters, including their Ultimates, and thanks to a bug at time of writing, this can actually allow the AI to use 2 Ultimates on you in the same turn, nevermind all the possible Fire AoEs and such.

Switchout Priority

We utilize all 6 team slots for this team, which means you're going to want to do some switching. Troll Fungi Fungi is great until it isn't; sometimes they're going to low roll and not land kills. Sometimes the enemy comp is just too threatening to keep them in for any longer than necessary. Regardless of the scenario, understanding when, why, and how to switch is important.

You will always start with Fungi Fungi Troll on the field. There are no exceptions to this. After you've made your Round 1 actions, assuming you survive the counter-actions from the opposing team, you'll need to make a decision as to what monsters you want on the field.

Sometimes, you just keep Fungi Fungi Troll out when things are safe, and keep killing targets until the battle ends. Sometimes you want to drop the Troll but keep the Fungi out to keep putting debuffs they might have missed out on in the first round. Other times you want to drop one or both Fungi but keep the Troll out so you can keep putting out reasonably high damage each round. And other times still, you want all of the front line gone and replaced by the back line, when you know Troll doesn't have any hope left of killing the things on the field, so your only goal is to stall and let things die to DoT.

This can be tricky, because you don't control which monster(s) your opponent removes or how many. If they remove only one monster (preferably a Fungi) it's simple enough to revive it and keep fighting, or start switching out to back line members. You may have to have your Troll revive a Fungi just for the Fungi to switch to Arachlich. You may have to have your Fungi revive your Troll and have it attack with impaired combo that round. The specifics depend entirely on the scenario and what decisions you make for each given battle.

The only concrete advice I can give here is always to switch to Arachlich first. Even if your team is wiped by an AoE, Arachlich will survive thanks to Phoenix Affinity, making it the safest "anchor" to keep reviving, switching, and stalling as needed. Additionally, it gets Blood Drive up and running so you don't need to stall as long. Following that, switch in Thornish if you're concerned about a wipe (such as if Arachlich's Phoenix Affinity was popped) or Nightwing if you feel safe enough to put him on the field before Thornish, as he will output far more DPS through Bleed Out and Deep Wounds.

In either case, once Thornish and/or Nightwing are on the field alongside Arachlich, have them put up Safecast and Shroud respectively, then stall as described in my old guide.

Final Thoughts

As before, I hope people can use the information outlined here to further optimize their own run or even their own teams. 300 was a hell of a grind, and quite RNG dependent. In all honesty, I feel more comfortable saying this is a good team to consistently reach 200, reasonably reach 250, and rarely reach 300, because beyond 200 and especially 250, threats can come from anywhere.

Even if the outlined threats aren't on the enemy team, it can still work out such that one of the monsters uses a single target skill on the Troll, killing it, then the other monster(s) use an AoE to wipe your Fungi. I tried all the optimizations I could think of to make this team as consistent for Arena as I could, but at the end of the day RNG will always be a large factor.

Thanks for reading, and good luck in your adventures!

[HedgieMage]

Cheers!

[Hogsqueal]

Tons of work went into this, great job