Arena

Arena is a PvE game mode in Tacticus where you can deploy up to 5 characters of mixed factions against another player's team. The enemy will be AI-controlled. Arena is one of two game modes where you can deploy characters without faction or power restrictions.

## Mode Mechanics

There are several factors to consider apart from the matches themselves: Leagues, Tickets, Seasons, Rewards, and Matchmaking.

**Leagues**: There are different leagues in Arena. Each League actually consists of multiple parallel leaderboards, so two players might be in the Captain League but not see each other on their respective leaderboards. The one exception is the highest league, Chapter Master, which has a single leaderboard. Your pool of enemies can only come from within your specific leaderboard group. Your leaderboard position at the end of the season determines whether you move up one league, stay in the same league, or go down one league.

**Tickets**: You have a maximum of 15 tickets; each ticket has a cooldown of 75 min. Tickets regenerate one-by-one.

**Seasons**: Each season is 7 days long with a downtime of up to 90 minutes between seasons (subject to change until global launch). This means that you cannot recharge all your tickets between Arena seasons. Your placement at the end of the season determines your final reward chest and if you are promoted/demoted to another league.

**Rewards**: Each Arena battle awards Ratings points for a win or removes Rating Points for a defeat. The number of points at stake depends on your and your opponent's rating point totals before the fight. You obtain rewards as the season progresses in the form of victory chests: after winning a certain number of matches in a season, you gain a leveled chest. The first chest comes at 2 wins and the final chest at 95 wins. It is not necessary to win every match to obtain all chests. The specific contents of the chests depends on your league. Your point total at the end of the season determines your leaderboard ranking. Your leaderboard ranking, in turn, determines your season-end reward chest. The win threshold chests and the end-of-season chest contain Snappawrecka shards.

**Matchmaking**: For each Arena battle, you will choose from three different opponents. Usually, one will be ranked above you on the leaderboard and is worth the most ratings points for a win (and least points lost if defeated), one will be about the same rank as you, and one will be lower ranked (with correspondingly fewer points for a win and more for a defeat). You will see each opponent's character lineup as well as that lineup's power score; note that leaderboard position is based on ratings points. As the season progresses and you gain ratings points, the number of points awarded or lost become smaller and so multiple opponents might give the same values. You can spend 1 blackstone to reroll your opponents and get three new choices. There is no cap on the number of times you can do this.

## The Match

After choosing an enemy you will load into the battle map (randomly determined). You can see the enemy's starting position and choose the starting positions for your characters in the deployment zone. Before pressing "Start" you can also check the stats and abilities of your opponent's characters.

Victory condition: Defeat all enemies. One friendly unit (character or summon) must be alive.

The player always gets to move first, although many maps are too big to hit the enemy directly on turn 1.

## Strategy Tips

* In the deployment phase, determine which characters you want to focus (as in "kill first"). Check their active ability stats and gear ranks. Also map out their movement + range to determine if you can safely wait out of their reach. Take characters that increase movement (Makhotep, Corrodius) or have global range abilities (Thaddeus Noble, Celestine) into account, as the game's damage zone indicator can be less than useful when they are involved (failing to show the true attack range with the movement increase or just highlight the whole map for globals).
* It's generally advantageous to wait outside of your enemy's reach on your first turn. The AI will blindly rush in, so all 5 of your characters may be able to connect on turn 2.

## Changelog

May 2023: Arena chests now award Snappawrecka shards instead of Haarken Worldclaimer