darkSpyro

I'm guessing it's a case of who you use as well as how you play, but I'm getting stuck (and I'm not ashamed to admit, extremely frustrated) on Arena Challenges in the second set of events, in particular the Smoke Bomb one (Those Arkeyan Duelists....)

I don't suppose anyone has some sage wisdom, recomendations, practical advice or whatever? If the second set is giving me this much strife, I shudder to think what the third will bring.

Well I don't think the difficulty is relative when it comes to arenas.
But for me, I finished all 21 arenas with Bouncer with his path that levels up his finger guns. Not much strategy involved. Just have to constantly be on the move and hold down the gun button the whole time.

Topic name edited for further clarification, I'm talking Nightmare Mode in which duelists one shot you, and Grenade Generals are more than an annoyance.

Use Double Trouble, S2 if you can. Focus on staying away from enemies, and let your Eldritch Beam do all the work. Difficulty definitely does scale in arenas, but DT is still cheap enough to pull it off. I used him, and it didn't take that long.

Alas, I only have S1 Double trouble (personal choice), but I do have the beam path. Unfortunately it seems to be less tactical/fun and more..... cheap in Nightmare mode, especially on Arenas.

Still, thanks for the suggestion, I'm still a bit flustered from what I can only describe as an aggravating experience...

The Wow Pow is certainly what made it easy for me. While the Eldritch Beam focused on the main threat, its side beams did continual damage to all the weaker things. I agree that Nightmare Arenas are super cheap. If there were any tactic I could share with you besides just to use a blunt instrument like S2 DT, I'd share.

I used S2 Gill Grunt on that one and was always using his water jet pack to quickly be on the move. His Harpoon has great long range accuracy for the smoke bombs and his water cannon works well if you don' tquite see where the smoke grenade is and I do a side to side sweep. Just like DutRank said, you gotta stay on the move. Be sure to take out the grenade guys first when they hop in the arena. Try to give them no time to throw at you. I find they get a huuuuge accuracy boost in Nightmare mode from just Hard.

That's interesting. In a Nightmare difficulty arena I can one hit certain enemies that normal take 2-3 hits in the story mode.

Nightmare mode is definitely harder in arenas then the others, damage wise you can still get one shot if you get caught out.

the main one i had difficulty with in nightmare was the first arena area...about stage 6? the spell dodging one.
i kinda cheated it, but it works ~ terrafin dodges all spells while underground.

Quote: byhi

I used S2 Gill Grunt on that one and was always using his water jet pack to quickly be on the move. His Harpoon has great long range accuracy for the smoke bombs and his water cannon works well if you don' tquite see where the smoke grenade is and I do a side to side sweep. Just like DutRank said, you gotta stay on the move. Be sure to take out the grenade guys first when they hop in the arena. Try to give them no time to throw at you. I find they get a huuuuge accuracy boost in Nightmare mode from just Hard.

I assume you used the Water Weaver path? God, why didn't I think of that.... I was trying it with Pop fizz and just spamming green and orange potions which only gets you so far. I fouled up on the Crystal Golem once, then got caught off guard by two (or was it three?) Arkeyan duelists.

Yeah I used S2 Double Trouble for every Nightmare mode Arena, with the exception of the damaging magic orb one (the one like the Chompy mage battle).

I used L-Stealth Elf for this one, and if the orb dodging got too tough I bailed over the edge and took the 10 damage rather than get hit by an orb (which quickly regenerated).
If you can dodge for long enough the wave will be over by the time you respawn.
The circular wave I found easy to dodge by running a zig-zag pattern, but the crossing lines got quite tough after the first few lines.

I've only got S1 Stealth elf, but she sounds like a solid contender for some of the challenges too.

Alright, thanks for the tips everyone, I'd hate to leave the Arenas unbeaten on Nightmare.