As new units are released weekly and top tier players are continuing to enhance their units and gear levels to stay competitive, it is often difficult for those starting to compete in the PVP scene to stay current on the meta. As a current Legend rank player, I hope to provide my weekly experience in PVP to keep the community current on trends and potential new strategies that may arise each week. 

Garff has become a favorite front-line unit this week, his Protect passive synergizes well with FC Annie to prevent her from being sniped!

Most of the information I will be providing is aimed towards current Master 1/Grand players or those building their accounts to reach those ranks. From my experience, most players in Master 3 and above have some, if not all, of the current meta units with 1 or 2 pieces of fated gear. The difference as you climb is gear level, how many ticket refreshes you do, and possibly a player’s approach towards meta defenses. 

Utilizing unit synergy, equipping guard stone sets correctly, and prioritizing attack order will definitely tilt a battle in your favor even if you may feel you are at a lower level than your opponent.    

Climbing Cliff Notes

• As of the day before reset, I stood at rank 39 with 214 Games (175 wins/39 losses) 81% win rate. I started climbing from Master 3 on patch day when Ramge was released.

• So far, used all the weekly bundles for ticket refreshes and refreshed from the station with Xes 5 times.

• FC Ana/Uloom frontline still meta; however, seeing many Garff’s FC shared with FC Zeon in place of Uloom which works really well if you have a fully fated Garff. Garff's passive provides protection to Annie so she isn't nuked first turn by an enemy Rera/Baraka/Jinn/etc. setting up your damage dealer for first turn and second turn nuke.  

• Guard Stone priorities: FC Rera and FC Anastasia full nature, single target damage dealers use 2 machine/3 frost, tanks use full frost.

• In my opinion, nature and frost guard stones should be prioritized as increased dodge and block are the RNG factors in this game. I would compare it to violent procs in Summoners War or resist/evade in Epic 7. A well timed dodge/block can tilt a match in your favor at high rank battles. Also, dodges or blocks still trigger the First Guardian/Dragon Knight passive…

• Nature synergizes with First Guardians/Dragon Knights as the damage over time (DOT) caused during a break triggers their passive and causes wrath counters which can also tilt a battle in your favor on both offense or defense.

• This requires more explanation and isn’t static depending on your team/situation in a battle, but TLDR version: My attack priority that I use for common meta defenses assuming you have some meta units, mainly Bathory/FC Annie/(Baraka or Jinn or Rachel or Rera) to survive first turn then nuke:

1. FC Annie/Bathory/FC Rera/FC Ana/Uloom
2. Garff/FC Annie/Bathory/FC Rera/FC Ana
3. FC Annie/Bathory/FC Baraka/FC Ana/(Nuker - Rachel/Jinn/FC Zeon) 

As a visual aid, here’s a video about what I am encountering and my strategy to win this week. It may be easier to see a battle as opposed to reading about it. Hope this is helpful and check the site again for my next weekly PVP recap!